(The following article by Jonathan Lucas was posted on the Stamford Advocate website on June 16.)
HARTFORD, Conn. — A $1 billion plan to replace Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line fleet will require increased fees, taxes or shifting funds from other transportation projects.
Marc Ryan, budget director for Gov. John Rowland, told state transportation planners yesterday that paying for updating the fleet and building facilities to maintain the cars could cost $30 million a year by the time the first cars arrive in 2009 and balloon to more than $100 million a year between 2015 and the time they’re fully paid off in 2035.
“Financing is the great unknown right now,” Ryan said, noting that all options are on the table for increasing the additional revenue, including raising fees and taxes and shifting funds from other transportation projects.
He was not specific about how that might be done, saying he was seeking input from the transportation officials.
Under the plan, the state would pay 65 percent, or $667 million, of the $1.02 billion cost of the trains while the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — the parent of Metro-North — would pay the balance.The state would bear the entire $350 million cost of building new maintenance facilities.
Rowland announced the proposal last week as part of a package that includes a short-term plan to add 4,000 new seats on Metro-North trains by fall.
The Legislature approved $60 million in April to provide additional seats. The state Department of Transportation initially intended to buy 20 new cars to provide 2,000 new seats but was able to procure more seats by buying 38 used rail cars from Virginia Railway Express.
The larger fleet replacement plan has not been formally introduced in the Legislature, but Ryan said he plans to seek an additional $10 million to $20 million in bonds for the proposal when the session convenes next year.
“I think it’s a good plan moving forward,” Ryan said. “The price tag is a killer, but we have to bite the bullet at some point.”
State Sen. Biagio “Billy” Ciotto, D-Wethersfield, chairman of the Legislature’s transportation committee, said much of the financing will rely on the availability of federal funds.
“We’re anxiously and eagerly awaiting what the federal government is going to do with TEA-21 (Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century) money,” Ciotto said. “That’s critical.”
Congress is considering bills to provide $275 billion to $318 billion in transportation funds over the next six years. Connecticut is expected to receive about $3 billion of that.
State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, said he would prefer to spare commuters any financial burden of providing new cars because they were hit with a 15 percent fare hike last year and will see another 5.5 percent hike in January.
“Rates have gone up and there has to be some recognition the Metro-North line is the most undersubsidized line in the country,” McDonald said. “If we’re actually trying to encourage people to use mass transit, then making additional poor decisions won’t further that goal.”
He said he would wait to see the governor’s funding proposal before issuing an opinion on increased taxes or motor vehicle fees.
“The governor has been in office for nearly a decade and neglected mass transit as a priority during his entire tenure,” McDonald said. “At this juncture, it is incumbent on him to own up to that fact and submit his proposal to actually implement this plan.”
Rowland has resisted any proposal to raise taxes in the past and in February, he rebuffed a call from U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Bridgeport, to raise the gas tax to buy new rail cars.
The New Haven Line suffered a spate of cancellations, late trains and overcrowding last winter as snow and ice frazzled electrical components and knocked out a third of the aging fleet.
Most of the fleet is more than 30 years old, about 10 years past its life expectancy.
“We can thank snowstorms for emergencies to bring people together,” said R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel, chairman of the state Transportation Strategy Board, which reviewed the proposal yesterday.
In its recommendations to relieve congestion throughout the state, the TSB has called for the “accelerated acquisition” over the next two to four years of 12 electric locomotives and 40 coaches to provide 4,200 additional seats on the New Haven Line.
“This is a major step in the right direction,” Griebel said.
However, Franklin Bloomer, a Greenwich resident who serves on the regional advisory board to the TSB, said the plan does not go far enough in addressing projected growth in Metro-North ridership.
“This doesn’t provide for a larger rail commuter fleet. It’s the same size as in 1994,” Bloomer said. “Three hundred and forty cars just doesn’t do the job. I submit that this board needs to get behind a program that will result in a much larger Metro-North fleet.”
Harry Harris, chief of the DOT’s Bureau of Public Transportation, said the plan assumes a 1.5 percent annual growth rate in ridership.
He said since the one-third of the fleet that is younger than 20 years old will not be immediately retired, there could be a surplus of equipment when all of the new electric trains become fully operational in 2015.
“There is room in there to handle future growth,” he said.