METRO NORTH NEW HAVEN RAIL COMMUTER COUNCIL
(Established in 1985 under Connecticut Public Act 85-239, now Sections 13b-212b and
13b -212c of the Connecticut General Statutes)
MINUTES OF DECEMBER 16, 2009
SWRPA
STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
Present were: Rodney Chabot, Luke Schmirring, Jeff Maron, Sue Prosi, Jeff Steele, Bob Jelley, John Hartwell, Roger Cirella and Terri Cronin, members of the Council; Jim Redeker and Jeff Parker, DOT; Harold Cobin, Member of the public.
The meetings of the October meeting at Grand Central Terminal were approved.
STAMFORD STATION AND GARAGE STUDY
There was a general discussion of the meeting on December 9, 2009 among some Council members and representatives of the Town of Stamford to discuss the study of the Stamford station and garage. Rodney Chabot, who was at the meeting, said that there had been much discussion about the location of a new garage. He thought that the company doing the study seemed to think that the preferable site for a new garage was the hole in the ground at the West end of Stamford station. Mr. Chabot said he thought that Council members preferred that the new garage be built on the site of the old one. Jeff Maron said that there was no assurance that the garage at the Manger-Gateway site will ever be built. Sue Prosi said that she thought that some suggestions in the study needed much further thought. Jeff Parker said that the DOT had no priorities for picking the location but that he thought spreading parking all over was not the answer. He said that in any case, the DOT will replace existing parking spaces during the tear- down and construction of a new garage. Jim Redeker said that he thought it would be nice to get a comparison of costs and effect on traffic for all proposed sites. Jeff Steele asked whether there was any possibility of just doing a simple garage replacement at the site of the old garage. Mr. Parker spoke of the need to get 1,000 spaces to replace the old garage. He pointed out that in addition to building a new garage, it was necessary to widen some of the railroad’s overpasses to permit traffic access to the south end of Stamford. Terri Cronin asked whether Amtrak could be helpful on the parking issue. Mr. Parker said one could not count on Amtrak to be helpful on parking.
STAMFORD GARAGE WALK-THROUGH
Mr. Maron reported on the Stamford garage walk-through on December 14, 2009. He said that he had attended the walk-through to accomplish two things: (1) to show the problems with daily operation including the failure of cars to stop at stop signs and (2) to look at the repair job. He said that as a result of the walk-through, he appreciated the limits of the job and the fact that shallow holes were not patched. Mr. Parker said the DOT wanted to replace the garage as soon as possible. Bob Jelley said that in thinking of railroad station parking more generally, it was his view that it was most urgent to provide parking at New Haven and Stamford stations. He said that because both Union Station in New Haven and Stamford Station attract a great many casual users he believed there was no problem having a new 1000 car garage for each of the two stations. In answer to a question about larger garages, Jim Redecker said that for station parking, it was impossible to operate anything bigger than a 1,000 car garage. He also reemphasized the difficulty in getting cars through the railroad overpasses to get to garages south of the rail line. Rodney Chabot said he thought Station Place needed to be widened and to let people stop at the curb to discharge passengers.
RAIL PARKING TASK FORCE
Mr. Redeker said that the early December meeting of the task force got recommendations for moving forward. He said he would pull together a report for a meeting some time in January.
DANBURY TRAIN FIRE
Ms. Cronin raised the question of the inadequacy of service alerts concerning the Danbury train fire on December 12, 2009. After some discussion, Mr. Jelley proposed a resolution concerning service alerts in general. The resolution was as follows:
RESOLVED, that the Metro North New Haven Rail Commuter Council, having discussed the timeliness of MNR service alerts many times over the years, and being informed by Howard Permut’s remarks at our October meeting, and being further informed by the article in the December, 2009 Mileposts, and being aware of the more timely and more frequent service alerts issued by LIRR and the NYC subway system, requests that CDOT work with MNR so to get MNR to change its service alert policy to be in line with the LIRR and NYC subway system service alert policies, thereby providing more timely, more specific, and more frequent service alerts.
After further discussion, the resolution was unanimously approved.
FARE INCREASES
John Hartwell asked about status of fare increases. Mr. Parker said that no one was pushing to put the increases into effect, and that the DOT will eventually start with hearings.
NEW M-8s
Mr. Redeker reported that the first two M-8s are in Baltimore. He said that they had taken two weeks to get from Japan to Baltimore and were taking three weeks to get from Baltimore to New Haven.
MTA PROPOSED SERVICE CUTS
Mr. Chabot asked why the MTA was proposing cuts in Connecticut trains to solve a New York State budget crisis. Mr. Parker said that on December 1st, Connecticut had approved an MTA budget without service cuts. Then the MTA changed its mind and passed a budget that included service cuts.
WATERBURY LINE
Roger Cirella raised the question of the Waterbury line feasibility study. Mr. Redeker said that the possibility of replacing the Waterbury line with buses had been removed from consideration. Mr. Parker said that there is no present money available to build sidings on the Waterbury line to permit trains in opposite directions to pass.
The meeting adjourned at 9:30 pm. The next meeting will take place on January 20, 2010 at SWRPA in Stamford.
Bob Jelley
Secretary
Phone: (203) 498-4306
E-mail: rjelley@wiggin.com
