Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, who said he is one of the lawmakers pushing for fully-funding commuter rail lines. “They’re still an economic engine to locations where people work,” said state Sen. Still, lawmakers in both parties are pushing to avoid any cuts to current service, and have even proposed running more trains and opening new routes to destinations such as New Milford. “People taking Metro-North Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are almost at pre-COVID levels,” Lamont said. If service is reduced along the New Haven Line, Lamont told reporters that Friday trains would be a prime candidate for cutbacks, as more workers opt to stay at home ahead of the weekend. “If those Connecticut budget cuts that are being discussed in Hartford do go through, there would be consequences to how much service is run, at least in the Connecticut portions of the New Haven line and it would be felt in the peak as well as in throughout the day,” MTA Chair Janno Lieber said during a press conference on Wednesday. The proposal would also put Connecticut at odds with neighboring New York, where the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has not proposed any cuts along the sections of the New Haven Line that run through the state en route to Grand Central Terminal. “This is going to put people back into cars, back into traffic.” “This budget cut runs counter to everything has talked about in terms of public transit,” said Jim Cameron, the president of the Commuter Action Group, which represents rail customers in Connecticut. Rail advocates and lawmakers who represent districts along those routes, however, argue that the proposed cuts are a shortsighted effort to save money that will only serve to further discourage ridership at a time when the state is turning toward mass transit as a way of reaching its long-term goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The state’s newest commuter route, the Hartford Line, has seen a more robust return to its ridership and would not have to face any cuts under the governor’s budget The governor’s office has pointed to the sluggish pace at which riders have returned to both routes as the region has emerged from the pandemic. Additionally, the Shore Line East route that is currently operating at two-thirds of its pre-pandemic levels between New Haven and New London would be pared back even further, to 44 percent of its earlier services.

Metro north new haven schedule