The Great Train (Ticket) Robbery

If you had a contract with someone and paid them in advance to do a job, only to find they never provided that service, you should get your money back, right?  Otherwise, by keeping the money and not delivering on the bargain, that person would be committing fraud.

Well, that’s exactly what Metro-North does to weekly and monthly ticket holders when it sells those tickets but cancels train service.  The railroad refuses to give those riders a refund.  That’s wrong.

For years the CT Rail Commuter Council has asked Metro-North (and its boss, CDOT) to rethink that policy, but they have refused.  We even approached Attorney General Jepsen, making a consumerist’s argument, but he wasn’t interested in helping.

Clearly, it’s not Metro-North’s fault when tropical storm Sandy or winter storm Nemo leave the tracks buried.  In some cases they can attempt substitute bus service, in which case refunds shouldn’t be required.

When the Commuter Council last year pushed for a “Passenger Bill of Rights” we asked for refunds when service was out, but the railroad said “impossible”,  though they did allow refunds on one-way tickets, which is not the problem at all.

One-way tickets are good for sixty days.  If the train’s not running, you can use them next week.  But weekly tickets are only good for seven specific days, Saturday through Friday.  If the train doesn’t run, you’re out of luck.

Look at the Waterbury line during storm Nemo.  Train service was halted Friday night and wasn’t resumed until the following Wednesday… four days.  A commuter who’d bought a weekly ticket from Waterbury to GCT paid $125 but lost 4/7ths of the ticket’s value and was denied a refund.

This year we’re pleading our case for fairness to the state legislature with the help of State  Representative Gail Lavielle of Wilton.  At our behest she introduced HB 5127 which would require Metro-North and CDOT to offer credit for unusable tickets when service is cancelled for more than 48 hours.  That credit could be made by extending the validity of a ticket, offering replacement tickets or maybe even a refund.

Fifteen commuters submitted testimony in support of the bill, making a very simple argument:  if the railroad can’t provide train service (or buses), ticket holders should be made whole.

When the airlines cancelled thousands of flights due to the blizzard, they honored passengers’ tickets on later flights.  When Metro-North cancelled trains, they just kept the money.

In his testimony on the bill, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Dept of Transportation said the refund plan wasn’t feasible.  And weekly / monthly commuters already get a discount, so why are they complaining?

And Metro-North, in one of its more arrogant moves of late, thumbed its nose at the Connecticut Legislature saying that as a NY State agency it was immune from Connecticut law.  That, in New York, is what they call chutzpah.

It’snot too late for commuters to support this bill by calling their elected officials.  Because while Metro-North deserves credit for much improved, usually on-time service, it should not be allowed to pick our pockets by selling us tickets when it cannot run trains, for whatever reason, but then keeps our money.  That’s just unfair.

Who Sets the Speed Limits on Our Highways?

Crawling along I-95 the other day in the usual bumper-to-bumper traffic, I snickered when I noticed the “Speed Limit 55” sign alongside the highway.  I wish!

Of course, when the highway is not jammed, speeds are more like 70 mph with the legal limit, unfortunately, rarely enforced.  Which got me thinking:  who sets speed limits on our highways and by what criteria?

In suburban Maryland they opened a $2.5 billion toll-road last year, connecting Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.  The ICC, or Inter-County Connector, is carrying so little traffic that motorists complain it’s hard to stick to the double-nickels (55 mph).  So to incentivize more traffic, Maryland lawmakers are talking of raising the speed limit to 70 mph, faster even than the 65 mph speed limit on other interstates. 

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that many of those same lawmakers would benefit from a speedier trip from their home districts to the state capital in Annapolis.

Why is the speed limit on I-95 only 55 mph in Connecticut but 65 mph in Rhode Island?  And even in-state, why is the speed limit on I-84 just 55 mph from the NY border to Hartford, but 65 mph farther east in “the Quiet Corner”?

Blame the Office of the State Traffic Administration (OSTA) in the CDOT.  This body regulates everything from speed limits to traffic signals, working with Local Traffic Authorities (usually local Police Departments, Mayors or Boards of Selectmen).

OSTA is also responsible for traffic rules for trucks (usually lower speed limits) including the ban on their use of the left hand lane on I-95.

It was the Federal government (Congress) that dropped the Interstate speed limit to 55 mph in 1973 during the oil crisis, only to raise it 65 mph in 1987 and repeal the ban altogether in 1995, (followed by a 21% increase in fatal crashes) leaving it each state to decide what’s best.

In Arizona and Texas that means 75 mph while in Utah some roads support 80 mph.  And mind you, those are just the legal limits, so you can imagine how fast some folks drive.

About half of Germany’s famed Autobahns have speed limits of 100 km/hr (62 mph), but outside of the cities the top speed is discretionary, though a minimum of 130 km/hr (81 mph) is generally the rule.  But top speed can often be 200 km/hr (120 mph).

Mind you, the Autobahn is a superbly maintained road system without the bone-rattling potholes and divots we enjoy on our highways.  And the German-built Mercedes and Audis on these roads are certainly engineered for such speed.

Interestingly enough, there are two bills (HB 5451 & 5553) up for consideration this month by the Transportation Committee of the Connecticut legislature that would raise the maximum speed limit on our Connecticut highways while also increasing the fines for speeding and reckless driving.  So expect some interesting debate on this topic in the coming weeks.