[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by JayCT

People need to understand that high speed rail is different than commuter rail. It is for long distance travel from one large city to another. That’s how trains can build up and maintain high speeds. They can’t do that when they have to stop at stations every five to ten miles. Technically, we could build high speed rail from Boston to New York and then to Philadelphia and Washington DC. Adding stops between just slows the trains down and defeats the purpose of it. Jay

That is just part of it. In many areas between Boston & DC, Amtrak passes busy corridors, sometimes at street level. That requires very slow speeds, too.

I'm not doing backflips over Lamont's announcement, but, in fairness, the great increase in train run times happened with Cuomo in NY, Malloy in Ct, and what happened the last 8 years is inexcusable regression.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by BobNJ1960

That is just part of it. In many areas between Boston & DC, Amtrak passes busy corridors, sometimes at street level. That requires very slow speeds, too.

High speed rail couldn’t use the existing tracks. They aren’t designed for it. To have true high speed rail you would need all new track likely along an entirely new corridor. Jay

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by JayCT

People need to understand that high speed rail is different than commuter rail. It is for long distance travel from one large city to another. That’s how trains can build up and maintain high speeds. They can’t do that when they have to stop at stations every five to ten miles. Technically, we could build high speed rail from Boston to New York and then to Philadelphia and Washington DC. Adding stops between just slows the trains down and defeats the purpose of it. Jay

If the New Haven line could maintain 70-80mph reliably, which the trains and better parts of the track are capable of (the M8 trains actually top out at 100mph by design), the commutes would be almost cut in half. Those speeds are realistic for a modern commuter train.

[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by JayCT

High speed rail couldn’t use the existing tracks. They aren’t designed for it. To have true high speed rail you would need all new track likely along an entirely new corridor. Jay

True, and all far above ground is best. Also ultra expensive, particularly in developed areas.

I do not ever see us matching the 2012 New Haven Line run times Stylo showed on pdf schedules. Lamont's plan is mitigate some of the damage since 2012, and I am not faulting him. He is playing a very bad hand.

The true solution IMO is to increase Norwalk-Stamford-Greenwich professional jobs sharply, as in tens of thousands, to reduce permanently New Haven line ridership into NY state. A solid office park single building can hold close to 2,000, so tens of thousands is not packing us in like NYC Grand Central, pre covid style.

[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by Stylo

If the New Haven line could maintain 70-80mph reliably, which the trains and better parts of the track are capable of (the M8 trains actually top out at 100mph), the commutes would be almost cut in half. Those speeds are realistic for a modern commuter train.

We stand a better shot at winning MegaMillions. It has demonstrated an inability to do that.

I also think adding tons of stations with too frequent stops was the wrong thing to do. At minimum, IMO Fairfield Metro should max out even pre covid at 1 arrival, 1 departure/hour. West Haven, Stratford the same. Westport & Milford the same. Make all trains express with a few stops, varying which stations get the stop. So perhaps a 6:05 am skips all between New Haven & Bridgeport, then skips to Norwalk. A 6:10 stops at Milford, Stratford, then straight to Norwalk. Etc.

Same at night.

[robr2]

Another option would be shorter trainsets with more frequency. Longer trains take more time to embark/disembark and spend time at each station.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by BobNJ1960

We stand a better shot at winning MegaMillions. It has demonstrated an inability to do that.

I also think adding tons of stations with too frequent stops was the wrong thing to do. At minimum, IMO Fairfield Metro should max out even pre covid at 1 arrival, 1 departure/hour. West Haven, Stratford the same. Westport & Milford the same. Make all trains express with a few stops, varying which stations get the stop. So perhaps a 6:05 am skips all between New Haven & Bridgeport, then skips to Norwalk. A 6:10 stops at Milford, Stratford, then straight to Norwalk. Etc.

Same at night.

I’m not sure the changes you suggest would provide effective service along the corridor. It decreases travel times but does not necessarily serve where boarding occur. Fairfield Metro Center has 2,000 parking spaces and is now likely to have as many hoardings as Fairfield Center station. You can’t reduce the number of stops there to one per hour and expect to serve the riders there. That goes for Milford and Westport too. South Norwalk is a major destination for commuters. You can’t just skip it. I get that you want to decrease travel times but that can’t be the sole goal of rail service. It’s a balance between the number of hoardings at each station and travel times on the corridor. Jay

[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by JayCT

I’m not sure the changes you suggest would provide effective service along the corridor. It decreases travel times but does not necessarily serve where boarding occur. Fairfield Metro Center has 2,000 parking spaces and is now likely to have as many hoardings as Fairfield Center station. You can’t reduce the number of stops there to one per hour and expect to serve the riders there. That goes for Milford and Westport too. South Norwalk is a major destination for commuters. You can’t just skip it. I get that you want to decrease travel times but that can’t be the sole goal of rail service. It’s a balance between the number of hoardings at each station and travel times on the corridor. Jay

W/O reducing stops, the half hour increase/ride will mainly stick. I will assume Lamont gets 2/3rd the 10 minutes desired, that still leaves an extra 25 minutes/ride, which is 230 days (assumes 6 weeks not riding, holidays, vacation, pto) * 50 minutes/day or 192 hours lost vs the 2012 commute.

8 extra days of life spent on Metro North every year.

A disproportionate amount spent dropping 2 people off at too many stations too many times per day.

Pre covid, Milford had 7 or 8 trains STOP by 7 a.m. (I had forgotten the 3 earliest ones.) That is far too many. Most, even in Milford, did not feature busloads boarding. It could be handled , if not by 1, by 2 trains/hour just as it was before we started adding stations every 2 miles. We have emulated the worst traits of NJ rail doing that. (I lived in Somerville NJ 2 years and we could see our train coming, stopped at the prior station under 3 miles away. That is silly.)

We have too many stations on the New Haven line, getting full service, instead of logically less premium service in terms of number of trains, in many stations.

MTA needs to study quantity getting on and off, and cut quantity of trains, using 80/20 rule, to stations in bottom 20% of people coming and going. And keep doing new 80/20s until they recapture those extra 192 hours of annual ride time lost since 2012.

[mdovell]

Public transit vs private usually boils down to this. Public has routes but private has designations. If you take a peter pan bus from new haven to NYC they can reroute it anywhere they want. You can't really do that for the most part with public transit. Having said this I've been following public transit for awhile now and it seems to be a big topic here. Generally speaking I think everything is being setup for a huge upgrade in transit in the northeast. Planning has been done for quite some time but with all the Recover funding coming this is pretty much going to happen. Highway upgrades, rail upgrades, rail trails, bike lanes, high speed rail, updated buses (ever see electric?). Any time when you have plans waiting for funding and then funding comes in it happens. Now I'm not saying it is overnight but within time this will all happen.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by BobNJ1960

Pre covid, Milford had 7 or 8 trains STOP by 7 a.m. (I had forgotten the 3 earliest ones.) That is far too many. Most, even in Milford, did not feature busloads boarding. It could be handled , if not by 1, by 2 trains/hour just as it was before we started adding stations every 2 miles. We have emulated the worst traits of NJ rail doing that. (I lived in Somerville NJ 2 years and we could see our train coming, stopped at the prior station under 3 miles away. That is silly.)

The thing about Milford, is very few people commute all the way to GCT at rush hour from New Haven/West Haven. So it's not really worth skipping, like it is the Fairfield County stops.

My favorite train was the Milford > Stratford > Bridgeport > Stamford > GCT