One Year On, Metro-North Works on Safety, Ridership and Lawsuits

Metro-North is facing in many directions at the same time, these days.

Since Feb. 3, when the commuter railroad suffered the worst crash in its history, crossing safety has been a top priority. Ridership has risen. An internal whistle-blowing mechanism has been put in place. And the lawsuits have kept on coming.

The fatal crossing

The Town of Mount Pleasant is investigating the potential to close the railroad crossing at Commerce Street in Valhalla, where a commuter train hit an SUV on the tracks at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 3 and five train passengers and the driver died in the fiery crash.

They’re also considering closing a nearby Harlem Line crossing at Cleveland Street that is also adjacent to the Bronx River Parkway, MTA officials said.

SEE: Harlem Line Tragedy: Safety Systems at Crossing Were Working, Investigators Say

That process originates at the Town level, and involves the New York State Department of Transportation, Metro-North and the MTA. The Town would submit a formal petition for the closure(s) of the crossings to the DOT. And the petition process would involve the opportunity for the public to offering their comments on a potential closure, including through public hearings.

Metro-North supports the closure of grade crossings as a general rule, officials said.

Lawsuits

Families of two men killed in last year when the Metro-North train hit the SUV filed lawsuits last month.

They are blaming the deaths of Joseph Nadol, 42, of Ossining and Robert Dirks, 36 of Chappaqua on the poorly designed crossing and the engineer of the train, according to an article in The Journal News.

The defendants include Metro-North, the engineer Steven Smalls Jr., Westchester County and the town of Mount Pleasant.

They were only the latest of the lawsuits filed against the commuter railroad.By June 2015, the railroad had been served 34 notices of claim, according to the Center for Justice and Democracy, and 27 claims had been filed against Mount Pleasant.

Even the family of the driver who was seen driving into the path of the oncoming train has sued.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the crash continues.

Crossing safety

Railroad crossing safety is often discussed in terms of the three “E“s: Education, Enforcement and Engineering; Metro-North officials said they have been focusing on all three since the crash.

In June, they announced a new partnership with Operation Lifesaver to work on better public education.

Operation Lifesaver is the nation’s premier railroad crossing safety organization. In partnership with them, this past June the MTA launched a major new push public safety messaging campaign. This Flickr link has images of that campaign.

With regard to enforcement (and education), over the past year, the MTA Police have significantly increased the level of motorist railroad crossing education and enforcement. In 2015, the MTA Police distributed 4,905 railroad crossing safety pamphlets to motorists and pedestrians and issued 1,875 summonses and 831 written warnings at railroad crossings.

RELATED: MTA Launches Grade Crossing Safety Campaign

With regard to engineering, in September 2015, the MTA Board approved a contract worth $269,000 to a safety consulting company, CTC, Inc., to help conduct a pilot risk assessment at 20 railroad crossings. That assessment is ongoing and is expected to be completed by the end of 2016.

Building off of that pilot program, the MTA expects to approve a contract to a safety expert to help conduct a three-year systemwide grade crossing safety risk assessment at priority locations throughout the entire LIRR & Metro-North systems in New York and Connecticut.

Also, Metro-North and regional first responders held an emergency response drill on Nov. 21 in Brewster, in which the scenario was a that a train traveling north along the Harlem line encountered a motor vehicle impeding the right-of-way. The train engaged its emergency brakes, but was unable to stop in time. Passengers of the train in the front two cars sustained injuries as a result of the impact.

SEE ALSO:

• Bedford Resident Eric Vandercar Among Victims
• Bedford Hills Resident Walter Liedtke Among Victims in Metro North Tragedy
• Widow of Harlem Line Rider from Danbury Suing Metro North
• Lawsuits Filed in Deadly Mount Pleasant Metro-North Crash
• Harlem Line Tragedy: The Front Car Filled with Smoke
• Ellen Brody’s Family to Sue Metro-North over Crash
• 19-year-old Heroine of Valhalla Train Crash

Reporting safety hazards

Finally, there’s the extended implementation of Confidential Close Call Reporting System, an initiative designed to encourage workers to report any potential safety hazard or breach of procedures that they may observe by providing them with a convenient, non-confrontational and anonymous method to do so.

The Confidential Close Call Reporting System is a partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and participating railroad carriers and labor organizations.

The MTA first rolled out C3RS in 2015 to approximately 1,500 transportation department employees, represented by the Association of Commuter Rail Employees (ACRE), including conductors, engineers and rail traffic controllers.

SEE: Political Leaders Say Harlem Line Crash Was Preventable

Metro-North President Joseph Giulietti, labor organizations representing 4,000 employees, and FRA Deputy Regional Administrator Les Fiorenzo signed a Memorandum of Understanding describing the core principles and values to successfully implement the program to its mechanical and engineering workers.

Metro-North is the first commuter railroad to implement the system with all of its operations workforce throughout the entire network.

“I am proud to put my signature on a document that provides the opportunity to continue the initiatives we have already put in place to enhance railroad safety,” said Giulietti. “This program confirms how much we depend on our employees to detect potential risks to our operations. They are the eyes and ears of Metro-North and we appreciate their contribution to making the system run safely and efficiently.”

C3RS is an FRA-funded program that provides a voluntary, non-punitive approach for employees to report certain incidents and close call events that pose the risk of more serious consequences. A third party (NASA) will receive the details of the incident via an online form and de-identify the information before presenting it to a Peer Review Team (PRT) consisting of local representatives from the FRA, Metro-North and labor unions representing 4,000 mechanical and engineering employees.

“Every day, nearly 300,000 people count on Metro-North to transport them safely to their jobs in the morning and home to their families every night. Starting a Confidential Close Call Reporting System for its mechanical and engineering Departments is another important step toward improving Metro-North’s safety culture, preventing accidents before they happen and increasing worker safety,” said FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg.

Other railroads currently using C3RS include Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, Amtrak and Strasburg Rail Road. Reporting results from each railroad provide the chance to see industrywide trends in close call incidents and use the information to prevent similar or more serious incidents from recurring.

While the reporting of close call events will not be used as a substitute for any existing Metro-North safety programs or reporting procedures, it is planned to serve as an additional tool for improving safety.

The information about close call incidents enables the railroad to identify factors that contribute to accidents or injuries and to correct these problems before they result in harm. It should increase productivity and cost savings by reducing claims and litigation as well as time lost from injuries. The program would also help to decrease damage to railroad property and the environment.

Ridership up

Meanwhile, ridership increased significantly in 2015. Metro-North reported all-time record ridership of 86.1 million customers, an increase of 1.6 percent over 2014.

Metro-North’s total ridership growth means that it has more than doubled the ridership the railroad carried when it was founded, in 1983.

“When ridership set records back in 2008, many said it was because of high gasoline prices, and that certainly is one factor,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas F. Prendergast. “But gas prices have sunk to low levels and the trend is continuing. We are seeing the confluence a strengthening regional economy, healthier downtowns around the region, a new generation of millennials who values public transportation, and greater productivity on board our trains through the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and laptops. Customers are also responding to improvements we have made, including more frequent trains, improving on-time performance, a fleet of modern new electric cars, expanding availability of real-time information, and more channels for customer communication.”

Continuing previous trends, Metro-North’s non-commutation ridership increased faster than its commuters. In 2015, Metro-North non-commutation increased 2.3 percent, while commutation increased 1.0 percent. Metro-North broke ridership records on all three of its main lines east of the Hudson River; the prior records had been set in 2008 on the Harlem Line and last year on the New Haven Line and Hudson Line.

“We spent 2015 working hard to improve Metro-North’s safety record, to restore confidence in Metro-North’s safety culture, and to rebuild our tracks,” said Giulietti. “We’re delighted to see the increase in ridership because we think it indicates that our attention to safety and improved reliability are encouraging more customers to ride the train.”

Ridership west of the Hudson River increased at a faster rate than east of it.

On the Port Jervis Line and New York State portion of the Pascack Valley Line, Metro-North expects 2015 ridership will have increased 4.9 percent over last year, to a combined total of 1.8 million customers. The volume of customers carried on the two lines is just 300,000 shy of the all-time record set in 2008. The Port Jervis Line and Pascack Valley Line are operated by NJ TRANSIT under contract to Metro-North.

Ridership on the three connecting services operated under contract to Metro-North also increased, by 3.8 percent, to 556,000. Ridership on the Haverstraw-Ossining Ferry rose 7.1 percent, while ridership on the Newburgh-Beacon Ferry declined by 3.8 percent. Ridership on the Hudson Rail Link, a bus service in the Bronx that connects to the Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale Stations, rose 4.2 percent.

PHOTO: NTSB investigates the Valhalla crash