Metro-North Among Nation's 'Busiest Railroads'

Metro-North carried 84.66 million passengers in 2014, a 1.5% increase over the prior year and the highest ridership in rail system’s history, according to figures released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“In another era, young people would buy a car with their first paycheck. Now, with access to the nation’s most vibrant public transit system, more of them are buying train passes and MetroCards,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas F. Prendergast in a statement.

“Across our region, New Yorkers are developing a mindset that riding the railroad isn’t just about going to work anymore. It’s becoming more and more integrated into the fabric of daily life. That’s why we’re pleased to be continuing projects in our Capital Program that will improve rail travel in the years to come, including East Side Access for the LIRR, Penn Station Access for Metro-North, and the LIRR’s Ronkonkoma Branch Double Track Project,” Prendergast added.

The rail road saw its strongest growth among “non-rush hour” riders, on “non-Manhattan commutes and for non-work trips,” according to the MTA, trends that have helped increase Metro-North ridership by more than 75 percent over the past 30 years.

The increase comes at a time when Metro-North has suffered through several accidents that resulted in deaths or scores of injuries to passengers.

Recently, the MTA’s poor field communications have been criticized, and train engineers are now being tested for sleep apnea following a deadly 2013 crash.

More recently, government officials and others have called for improvements to rail grade crossings following a deadly crash in Valhalla between a train and a car that killed six.

In fact, while rail-related accidents and fatalities have declined nationwide, from 2012-14, there were 81 accidents, 15 deaths and 23 injuries at grade crossings alone in New York, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The grim statistics helped New York land a $967.1 million loan from the FRA “for the improvement of the safety of the signal systems used by the MTA’s two commuter railroads, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week.

Officials said the money will be used to install “positive train control,” which is technology that helps to remove human error that can lead to accidents.

“This loan is a dramatic investment in the MTA - one that will make trains safer for all riders on Metro-North and the LIRR,” said Cuomo in a statement. “With this infusion of funding, crews will be getting to work on individual cars and along hundreds of miles of track to install state of the art technology that can save lives. This loan could not have been possible without the hard work and support of DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx and Acting Administrator Sarah Feinberg, and I thank them on behalf of all MTA commuter rail customers for helping us make this important advancement possible.”

According to the MTA, positive train control is a “technology that allows computerized systems to automatically control certain aspects of train movement. It is intended to prevent train-to-train collisions, trains accidentally traveling into areas where track workers are working, or derailments caused by excessive train speed or the movement of a train through an improperly aligned switch. The technology can address situations like the Spuyten Duyvil derailment in the Bronx, where a train was going faster than its maximum allowable speed. Congress mandated the installation of positive train control in 2008 for all commuter railroads in the U.S.”

Both Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road are in the process of implementing the technology, officials said, which includes the installation of on-board components for 1,455 rail cars and transponders alongside 588 route miles of track. The MTA awarded a contract to a joint venture of Bombardier Transportation and Siemens Rail Automation in 2013 “to act as a systems integrator that will provide the design, furnish equipment and ensure that the system functions as intended.”

Of the FRA loan, Congressman Eliot Engel said: “MTA services are an indispensable part of my constituents’ everyday lives. Thousands of commuters rely on the MTA daily to travel to work, home or school. They expect – and should receive – a safe train ride. Implementing positive train control is a critical step making this expectation a reality. The tragedies that occurred at Spuyten Duyvil in 2013 and in Westchester earlier this year may have been avoided if this life-saving technology had been in place. While we cannot assuage the pain and grief that these accidents have caused, we can make every effort to create a better railroad moving forward. I applaud the DOT and the Federal Railroad Administration for recognizing the need for this technology in the MTA system, and am very pleased that all rail travelers can experience a safer ride.”

Congresswoman Nita Lowey added, “I’m pleased that MTA’s application to install positive train control technology has been approved by the Federal Railroad Administration. Securing this funding would help ensure that disastrous events like the December 2013 Metro North accident never happen again. Over the last year, I have worked tirelessly to highlight the need for additional resources to help commuter railroads install PTC, and I will continue to work with federal and state officials to ensure that MTA gets the resources it needs to keep its riders safe.”

Below is additional information about the gains in ridership:

On Metro-North, trips that do not involve Grand Central or Harlem-125th Street have increased 273% since 1984 and non-commutation ridership to Manhattan has increased by 133%, while commutes to Manhattan have increased by 31%.

Traditional commutes to Manhattan now constitute less than half of total Metro-North rail ridership. They account for 49% of trips taken in 2014, compared with 67% in 1984. Bronx residents commuting to Westchester County, and Westchester residents commuting to Connecticut, so-called reverse commuters, as well as Connecticut residents commuting from the east end of the New Haven Line to major employment centers in Connecticut, are some of the fastest growing types of travel on Metro-North.

The ridership increases mirror increases in the frequency of trains. Metro-North ridership has been building in part because of 66 weekly trains the railroad added in October 2012, and another 187 weekly trains added in October 2013. Half-hourly weekend service was added to the eastern New Haven Line in November 2014.

Increasing use of the railroads for large-scale sports events has also contributed to the non-commutation ridership growth. Metro-North’s Yankees-E. 153rd Street Station opened in May 2009; Barclays Center, home of the New York Nets and the future home to the New York Islanders, opened adjacent to the LIRR’s Atlantic Terminal in September 2012. Both railroads began providing trips to Jets and Giants games in 2009 with the opening of NJ Transit’s train station at the Meadowlands.

The high ridership in 2014 took place in spite of harsh winter storms that reduced travel volumes on both railroads in January and February of 2014.

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