Connecticut transit riders urged lawmakers to bolster funding and services for the state’s local commuter railroads on Wednesday, as ridership continues to experience an uneven rebound from the pandemic.
While passenger numbers have risen steadily over the last five years, most routes have yet to see ridership fully recover to the levels seen prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the last figures from the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Advocates, however, say the comeback has been hampered by service cuts that were imposed on the New Haven Line and Shore Line East in order to achieve budgetary savings in 2023.
“Without question, unequivocally, any public transportation person will tell you that the best way to increase ridership of public transportation is to provide steady and constant service,” Jim Gildea, chair of the Connecticut Public Transportation Council, said at a public hearing before the legislature’s Transportation Committee Wednesday.
The committee is considering two bills to adjust the amount of money that has been proposed for the state’s commuter rails.
The first, House Bill 7059, would require the Department of Transportation to fund Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line — the state’s busiest commuter route — at pre-pandemic levels while also studying the feasibility of extending the Danbury Branch to provide service to New Milford, in Litchfield County.
The second piece of legislation, Senate Bill 714, would restore service along Shore Line East, which runs between New Haven and New London, to pre-pandemic levels.
Doing any of those things would likely require millions of dollars in additional investments — money that was not included in Gov. Ned Lamont’s $55.2 billion budget proposal laid out last month. Instead, the governor proposed keeping commuter rails running at current levels, while increasing fares by 10% over the next two years to pay for the increased cost of service.
In testimony submitted to lawmakers, Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto noted that recent investments in rail service — in particular, $5 million in federal funding to add direct service on Shore Line East to Stamford — are still quite new.
“From my perspective, ideally you’d give that some time and see what ridership is after the return of those through trains,” Eucalitto said Wednesday.
Chris Collibee, a spokesman for the Office of Policy and Management, said the Lamont administration’s latest estimates put the cost of restoring service on Shore Line East to pre-pandemic levels at around $46 million. That would increase the per-rider subsidy on Shore Line East from $183 to $372.
By contrast, that subsidy is about $6.48 for each rider on the New Haven Line, and $78 on the Hartford Line.
Supporters of Shore Line East, however, said that ridership grew by more than 50% late last year after additional trains were added to the schedule, suggesting further investments would pay off.
“Pre-pandemic, this train line was vibrant, running 40 trains a day,” Susan Feaster, the founder of the Shore Line East Riders Advocacy Group, told lawmakers on Wednesday.
“The trains were consistent, and this built a healthy ridership.” But a series of disruptions, beginning with track work by Amtrak in 2018, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and service cuts three years later have caused riders to abandon the line, she said.
“Our constant message has been, trains build ridership,” Feaster added. “I speak to people every day who tell me that they would ride the train if there were more trains running. They tell me it is not convenient and would make them have to sit in a
train station, sometimes for hours, until they could get a train home.”
Gildea, of CT Public Transportation Council, also noted the two routes that have succeeded in surpassing their pre-pandemic ridership numbers — the Hartford Line and Waterbury Branch — did so after the state invested millions of dollars to upgrade infrastructure and increase service.
While proposals to expand service along local rails have generally attracted bipartisan support, they have fizzled in the past due to budget constraints.
For example, state Rep. Bill Buckbee, R-New Milford, noted in testimony to the committee this is the ninth time he’s supported legislation to look at expanding commuter service to his town — which, he wrote, is in “dire need of help to alleviate Route 7 congestion.”
Despite those efforts, Metro-North service still ends 15 miles south, in Danbury in Fairfield County.
A study of expanding rail to New Milford would likely cost upwards of $1 million, Eucalitto said, along with the time and resources DOT staff could put toward other projects.