Not a Peak Round Trip to Grand Central?

By Mark Ginocchio, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

Oct. 18–Monthly commuters from the suburbs into Grand Central Terminal no longer rule the rails.

For the first time, Metro-North Railroad officials are reporting traditional commuters — those who travel from the suburbs in the peak morning hours and arrive at Grand Central — are outnumbered by reverse and intermediate riders and day-trippers.

Systemwide, 49.4 percent of Metro-North’s riders commuted into Manhattan in 2005, compared with 65.3 percent in 1984, the year Metro-North was created.

Traditional commuting has grown by about 17 percent since 1984, while ridership has grown by 126 percent during all other times, Metro-North officials said.

State rail advocates called the report a positive sign for the region because it means more people are commuting from New York City into cities such as Stamford, Greenwich and Norwalk or commuting from one New Haven Line station to another.

“I think this is some very exciting stuff,” said Joseph McGee, vice president of public policy for the Business Council of Fairfield County. “I’m not surprised by this. That’s why we have to expand the rail system and link to different stations.”

The state must improve service at intermediate stations like Fordham in the Bronx, where ridership is up more than 700 percent since 1985, McGee said.

About 2,100 people a day board at Fordham, according to the railroad’s report.

State Department of Transportation and Metro-North officials said they have been monitoring service to address these ridership trends.

“We’re ecstatic about this news because the intermediate and reverse commuters is keeping folks employed in Connecticut,” said Eugene Colonese, administrator for DOT’s rail bureau.

“We helped create this trend by actively finding ways of putting paying customers in empty seats to boost ridership and revenue and make the train the region’s transportation mode of choice,” Metro-North President Peter Cannito said in a statement.

Since it started in 1984, Metro-North added 14 peak trains that head back to Grand Central in the evening for a total of 44, officials said.

Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Chairman Jim Cameron called the railroad’s report “slightly misleading,” because the traditional commuters still make up the single largest segment of ridership.

Despite the increases, reverse commuters make up about 4 percent of total annual revenue and intermediate commuters make up about 6 percent. Weekend riders make up 15.2 percent of total revenue and weekday day-trippers represent 29.9 percent.

However, because of the trends, Cameron said he supports having a reverse-commuter representative on the commuter council, although the group’s general statutes permit only state residents on the board.

With new rail cars and new stations planned for the New Haven Line, those reverse and intermediate numbers should grow more, said Karen Burnaska, co-chairwoman of the Coastal Corridor Transportation Investment Area, an advisory group to the Transportation Strategy Board.

“If these increases happened without any real improvement to the trains and schedules, think what will happen once we do,” she said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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