(The following story by Mark Ginocchio appeared on the Stamford Advocate website on April 1.)
STAMFORD, Conn. — State Department of Transportation and Metro-North Railroad officials received an earful last night from city representatives and community preservationists who wanted to know who was responsible for maintaining railroad property that has been overtaken by debris and weeds.
Litter along railroad embankments and rail yard facilities in the city has become unsightly and needs to be cleaned up regularly, members of the Board of Representatives Public Health & Safety Committee told DOT and Metro-North officials at the committee’s monthly meeting last night.
“Every day for the past 10 years when I’m heading to work, I see there’s a problem,” said committee chair, city Rep. Richard Lyons, D-1. “In 10 years, nothing has been done to maintain the landscape. And this is an intensely residential community.”
While the meeting produced no resolution, Metro-North, who appears to be responsible for the property, said it wants to work with the city to improve its appearance. But the railroad said it needs to identify the problematic areas before it can assemble a cleanup plan.
In the past, community cleanup groups like Keep Stamford Beautiful have reached out to Metro-North for assistance in cleaning the properties — which run along North and South State Streets in downtown Stamford, and along tracks used by the New Canaan branch line in Springdale and Glenbrook. But their requests had fallen on “deaf ears,” said Rick Myers, Keep Stamford Beautiful’s director of operations.
“I’ve tried to contact people to clean the tracks and make it more user-friendly, but it just never seems to get cleaned up,” he said.
Two years ago, Keep Stamford Beautiful volunteers tried to clean up the tracks themselves but were stopped by Metro-North police who threatened the group with arrests for violating federal law by standing within 25 feet of railroad tracks, Myers said.
DOT and Metro-North representatives were interested in working with the city and cleaning up the littered areas but said they were unaware of the problem until railroad president Peter Cannito noticed a letter-to-the-editor written by Lyons in a January edition of The Advocate.
“We want to be good neighbors,” said Peter Richter, assistant rail administrator for DOT’s Bureau of Public Transportation. “We didn’t know about this until we were contacted. All it takes is a phone call and we’ll go out there and take care of it.”
Residents have been confused as to who to call, Lyons said. The properties in question could be owned by either the city or state, and people who called Metro-North were usually told to address their complaints elsewhere, he added.
Because Metro-North is the contracted railroad operator, its crews would be responsible for cleaning state property, Richter said.
“In the past, we have worked well with the communities we service through joint efforts,” said Mark Mannix, director of Government and Community Relations for Metro-North. “We want to know what needs to be cleaned up and what are the problem areas first, before we put together a plan.”
Some of the litter was likely blown onto the railroad property or was thrown over fencing by pedestrians, Richter said. That’s why cleanup needs to be a joint effort between the city and the state, he added.
But some city representatives were more concerned with why the litter had gone uncollected for so long. City Rep. Terry Adams, D-3, questioned why Metro-North doesn’t have a dedicated crew just for track and embankment cleanup.
City Rep. Robert “Gabe” DeLuca defended the DOT and Metro-North officials, and asked the other city representatives not to dwell on the past.
“These people are willing to work together, and exchange phone numbers,” DeLuca said. “Going back to 10 years ago isn’t helping anything.”
One area of complaint that may not be addressed is the vegetation growing along the embankment. Lyons described the growth as a “thicket” that’s a magnet for debris, but John Wagner, director of tracks and structures for Metro-North, said the growth has to stay.
“We want that growth, we want that thicket,” he said. “That’s the greatest thing we have,” because it stabilizes the soil on the sloped track area.
As for letting volunteer groups clean up the debris themselves, Richter said it’s better to err on the side of caution.
“These are dangerous places,” he said. “I know trash is an important issue, but safety is more important.”
City representatives agreed to e-mail Richter and the Metro-North representatives a list of areas that need the most attention. Myers said he will contact Metro-North before the next Keep Stamford Beautiful meeting, after he learned the railroad sends a representative to Norwalk’s Clean and Green committee.
Some community representatives were still disappointed by last night’s meeting and said they hoped Metro-North and DOT would take a more proactive approach at keeping their property clean.
“There was a lot of blame the victim here and hostility,” said Lorell Guydon, a member of the South End Revitalization Zone. “All I know is, if someone leaves something on my property, it’s my responsibility to clean it up. If I don’t, then people will walk by and say my property looks like hell.”