As temperatures exceeded 100 degrees last Friday evening, many Metro-North commuters were stuck on the sweltering trains with no air conditioning, power or water as they attempted to get home from work.
U.S. Representatives Jim Himes and Rosa DeLauro don’t want to see this happen again and they have called on Metro-North to perform an official investigation into what happened and to create a standard operating procedure for responding to train outages, including a policy for communicating with passengers.
Passengers reported receiving no information from train officials, “leaving them confused, helpless, and, given the weather conditions, in potential physical danger,” the Congress members wrote in a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Some people pried open train doors and got out onto the tracks, they said.
MTA apologized for the inconvenience.
“While incidents like this illustrate the dire need to invest in our transportation infrastructure, especially trains in the Northeast, we absolutely must uphold the highest standards of passenger safety,” Himes wrote. “I appreciate that Metro North has apologized to passengers, but we need procedures in place to ensure future travelers remain safe and well-informed.”
DeLauro wrote that it’s necessary to complete the “long overdue replacement of railcars and electrical systems on the Metro North,” but policies and procedures have to be in place.
“These kinds of delays and miscommunication are not only inconvenient, they can be dangerous. I will keep working, along with my colleagues, to improve our rail infrastructure and ensure that commuters can reach their destination safely and on time,” DeLauro wrote.
