With Metro-North ridership down 2.8% from the same point last year, the Journal News says the railroad is facing an unforeseen revenue shortage–on top of the $1.8 billion deficit it’s already staring at.

Its core customers thinned due to commuters being laid off, Metro-North has never seen such a protracted dip in ridership.

The paper reports:

Railroad spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the railroad was seeing what is probably its worst stretch of lower ridership in its 26-year history.

It’s funny–as recently as February, Metro-North was volubly touting its record ridership last year, with a 4% increase. OK, maybe funny isn’t the right word.

And here’s the happiest little New Haven Line rider ever, the lagging line’s cantenary woes, five hour trips to Westport and other pratfalls be damned. New Rochelle-to-Grand Central (and back!) commuter/legal secretary Lillian Martinez tells the Journal News train service is downright near-perfect every damn day:

“In 18 years on Metro-North, maybe I’ve been late or held up five times,” she said.

Service was suspended on the New Haven Line this afternoon when some debris on the pedestrian overpass at New Rochelle station was blown about by those brutal winds.

The flotsam crashed into a train around noon, reports the Journal News, and short-circuited the overhead catenary wires.

“I heard a crash that sounded like metal moving and they told us to get out,” [Port Chester resident Stacey Harris] said. “It wasn’t terribly alarming, but a lot of us were confused as to what was happening.”

Service is expected to be normal for the evening commute.

[image: Journal News]

Switching problems are causing major delays on the Hudson Line, reports the Journal News. The trains are held up as much as an hour each way.

Trains were always receiving signals, [spokesperson Dan] Brucker said, but had to stop when five switches went down at 7:30, literally stopping the trains in their tracks.

Residual delays are up to an hour, Brucker said.

It has not been determined, Brucker said, why switches up and down the line were not receiving signals.

“Obviously this will and has had, a major impact on the commute,” Brucker said.

If you have to be jammed up on one of the train lines, at least the Hudson has those wondrous views.

If you thought you saw a substantial show of force at the 125th Street stop this morning, you did indeed: the NYPD was massed to show potential terrorists they’ve got the turf covered, reports Yonkers Man Mugged…I mean, the Journal News.

The daily reports:

The joint effort by the New York City Police Department and officers from the railroad, known as a counterterrorism surge, was limited to the 125th Street station, railroad spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.

We recently mentioned the new hotspot in Grand Central, and it appears Hawthorne train station has its very own hotspot too–the bike rack that TJ had sole us for for the past year.

Not only was the black Vespa–heretofore known as the Black Rider–there again today, but there was a sleek gray mountain bike as well. Suddenly getting into the rack is like getting into Moomba circa 1995.

(For all potential bike thiefs out there, the rack is in a highly trafficked area, is exceedingly well-lit, and is rimmed by razor wire and cancerous Tasmanian devils.)

The jam-up at the rack got me thinking: Are more people biking/Vespa’ing due to the price of gas? The Journal News noted recently that Metro-North ridership was up around 5% of late. I must say, since they’ve mentioned it, the train indeed seems much fuller; note all the vestibule-standers at White Plains these days–what used to be 2-3 is now 6 or 7.

Mind you, it’s still preferable to riding an autorickshaw through Hyderabad with 14 of your closest friends, but things other than gas tanks seem to be filling up these days.

[image: arwen-undomiel.com]

Metro-North ridership is up almost 5%, reports the Journal News, as more and more would-be motorists are turning to the rails to escape the crippling cost of driving to work.

Ridership on the railroad has increased almost every year of its 25-year history, but increases near 5 percent are rare. The average annual increase is about 2 percent, according to railroad figures. Railroad spokesman Dan Brucker said the latest increases come even as a soft economy may have cost jobs for people in the insurance, finance and real estate industries, who make up much of the passenger base.

“Which shows that even with perhaps losing some customers, we’re gaining far more who have never traveled with us before,” he said. About 125,000 people ride the trains each day.

Our terrific newspaper lady Dolores L. came through for us again, delivering the Journal News, which we do not subscribe to, and failing to deliver the New York Times, which we do subscribe to. So if you’re curious about how Dobbs Ferry’s baseball team fared against rival Ardsley, just ask me.

Thanks to Dolores L., I did stumble upon a story about proposed transit systems that would run east-west across Westchester and link the county to Rockland. Among the options are commuter trains, a new Tappan Zee, or something called Bus Rapid Transit–which “Getting There” columnist Khurram Saeed says is also about to launch in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

Saeed shares a couple interesting figures on bus-riding: with 2.4 million daily riders, New York City has the highest bus ridership in the country. And averaging 7.9 miles an hour, it’s got the slowest buses in the country. (On a semi-related note, I saw recently, can’t remember where, that it’s faster to take the train from New York to Philly than it is to take the subway from the bottom of Manhattan to the top.)

The NYC DOT will also roll out its enhanced bus service in other parts of the city, including 1st and 2nd Avenues in Manhattan. Among the features are ticket machines that allow riders to pay at the bus stop, and some crazy technology that allows drivers to tweak traffic signals.

Bus drivers would receive priority at traffic signals, meaning they can hold a green light longer or shorten red lights by several seconds when behind schedule.

Bet the drivers can’t wait to get their hands on that.

A far cry from the saddest little ballfield in New York is the rebuilt Yankee Stadium, and the Journal News offers a peek at the $91 million Metro-North station stop that’s being built across from the Stadium.

The station platform will measure 420 feet–around six times the typical Metro-North stop, and more than large enough to hold A-Rod’s ego.

This is just awful in every way. A blind 75-year-old newsstand operator was killed at Croton-Harmon station this morning after falling onto the trucks and getting hit by an Amtrak.

Therese Fiorentino had stepped onto the platform for a smoke and then fell onto the tracks, where she was struck by a southbound train at 8:31.

Fiorentino ran the newsstand/coffee cart at Croton-Harmon, pictured below, with her daughter.

Jeff28 writes into the Journal News:

I was on the southbound Metro-North train that was supposed to leave at 8:34. I was already sitting in the train when suddenly I heard all the commotion. At first I thought it was a few girls playing around but the sudden screaming got much louder and intense. It was then that I realized something really serious happened, and when I looked at the Amtrack pulling in, I feared the worst and knew it to be the worst case scenario.

[photo: Rob Ryser, Journal News]

Is it me, or is it sort of sad when the fact that the trains are operating on time is considered newsworthy?

Check out the big scoop in today’s Journal News:

Metro North: Trains on time

(Original publication: November 8, 2007)

Metro North Commuter Railroad reports as of 7 a.m. that trains on the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven divisions are running on or close to schedule this morning.