Stamford Commuters on Station Improvements

Stamford's commuters may have mixed feelings in regards to a for Stamford Transportation Center improvements.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Mayor Michael Pavia, Con. Jim Himes, and other local politicians specified the TIGER grant improvements during a 10 a.m. press conference on Monday at Stamford Station.

The news of STC's improvement was met with applause by Stamford commuters, who left shortly after the announcement to catch their trains.

According to daily Metro-North commuter Jeff Maron, he and other commuters feel that "things are so bad over there now" because of past improvement efforts, even if he found the city's new efforts "encouraging."

"They narrowed the roadway on Station Place...there's no place to drop anyone off, parking's very limited, and as a result, I think they might have made what was then a bad problem much worse," Maron told Patch. "And now, they want to improve it."

Maron stated that STC's parking garage was built with design and architectural flaws, but to close it down may cause a different issue.

"We also need to consider how we're going to deal with the loss of parking during that process. For quite a while now, they've been talking about reducing the number of spots adjacent to the station, and no rider thinks that's acceptable," Maron said. Maron recommended widening the roadway of Station Place as one of several uses for the grant.

Maron, also a member of the Connecticut Metro-North Rail Commuter Council, could not speculate as to why STC's parking garage was not included in the TIGER grant application. However, he offers his own educated guesses.

"I don't think they know what to do with it...they're just avoiding it, if you ignore the issue long enough, maybe someone will take of it. But that doesn't seem to be happening," Maron said. "It's a centerpiece to that area."