By Ken Valenti

WESTPORT–Metro-North Railroad riders at the Westport Train Station can name several benefits to the railroad’s plans to run some New Haven Line trains directly to New York Penn Station.

The Penn Station Access plan will provide an alternative to the current runs to New York City, which all end at Grand Central Terminal. It will also add four stations in the east Bronx.

“More public transportation is good, so yes (it’s a good idea),” said attorney Mariam Wugmeister, waiting for the train from the Westport station to Grand Central on Wednesday. Her law office is about the same distance from Penn Station as from Grand Central, but she sees benefits for all, such as lighter traffic and a lesser impact on the environment. “Maybe fewer people would drive,” she said. “It would be better in every way.”

Metro-North projects that the project would take 2,860 daily trips in personal vehicles off the roads, saving 80,000 vehicle miles each day.

Other commuters spoken to at the station saw benefits in quicker and easier access to Madison Square Garden events, jobs in New Jersey and even Newark Liberty International Airport.

The bad news? This week, the projected completion of the Penn Station plan was pushed back three years to 2030 at the earliest.

Jamie Torres-Springer, president of Construction and Development for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Metro-North’s parent agency, announced the new target date in a meeting of the MTA board’s Capital Program Committee. He faulted Amtrak for the delay. To reach Penn Station, Metro-North trains would veer off the railroad’s own tracks just south of New Rochelle onto Amtrak rail into Queens and over the Hell Gate Bridge to Manhattan.

Torres-Springer said the national railroad has fallen far short on agreements to provide the track outages needed to allow crews to perform the work, and Amtrak staff needed on site for work to move forward.

“This project has been troubled from the start, and that’s predominantly due to the fact that we are working on Amtrak territory, subject to Amtrak’s cooperation and oversight,” he said. Even the new projected 2030 completion “requires a level of cooperation from Amtrak that we have not gotten to date,” he said.

As an interim measure, Metro-North plans to start a shuttle service from New Rochelle to the four planned east Bronx stations by 2027, which was the previous projected completion date for the entire project, said Metro-North President Justin Vonashek. The Bronx stations will be at Co-Op City, Morris Park, Parkchester and Hunts Point.

Amtrak noted in a statement that it has invested more than $140 million “and staff resources” to the project.

“We remain committed to this critical project, and being good stewards of taxpayer investment for Amtrak, MTA customers, New York residents, and travelers,” the statement said.

The statement lists several ways Amtrak is collaborating with the MTA to speed up the project, including planning more outages for work to get done, including long-term outages. Amtrak also plans to expand its staff “to provide 190% of the committed amount” for the project, and will take on some of the work the MTA planned to perform, the statement said.

The project includes adding and rehabilitating 19 miles of rail, turning a two-track railroad into four tracks. That will give both Metro-North and Amtrak flexibility to avoid delays and halted service in the case of a disruption, according to the MTA’s web pages on the project. A second Manhattan terminal will improve the “overall resiliency of the Metro-North network,” and bringing the Hell Gate Line into a good state of repair will improve reliability and on-time performance for Amtrak, the MTA said.

Metro-North projects that commuters heading to Manhattan’s west side from Connecticut and Westchester will save up to 40 minutes of travel time every day. 

That will give a new option to Westporters commuting or visiting Manhattan. Riders take more than 3,000 trips each day between Grand Central and the Westport station in Saugatuck, and almost 800 trips daily to and from the Green’s Farms station, the railroad said. 

A one-seat trip to Penn Station will bring passengers closer to many destinations, including the fashion district and the World Trade Center.

“It makes a lot of sense for commuters who live here and work in Hudson Yards,” Weston resident Phil Platek said, catching the train to Manhattan from Westport for a day trip. Another benefit Platek is hoping for: Direct rides to events at Madison Square Garden, which sits above the station.

“When I go to Knicks and Rangers games, it’s a great idea,” he said.

Metro-North spokesman David Steckel said it is too early to say whether there will be a special service for events similar to the “Yankee Clipper” service that takes fans to Yankee Stadium for games.

For some, the advantages extend beyond Manhattan. New Yorker Ella Lederer, taking the train home from Westport Wednesday morning, said her brother commutes daily from the town to his tech sales job in Jersey City, N.J. Westport resident Mark Starling works at a digital company closer to Grand Central,  but said trains to Penn Station would simplify travel to the Newark, N.J., airport for the business trips he takes once a month.

“If you could get to Penn Station, you just hop on a train to Newark and you’re there,” he said.

Doug Hamilton, who works in finance, said his office is closer to Penn than GCT and the option could save him 10 minutes. But, having heard about the delay in the service, he wasn’t sure when that would be.

“My kids will probably enjoy it,” he said.

Ken Valenti

^{_{A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.}}