On March 30th, Neal Zuckerman, MNRCC representative from Putnam County, held an open house meeting in the Cold Spring City Hall to hear the thoughts, opinions and complaints of riders. Also present were PCAC Executive Director Bill Henderson, Associate Director Jan Wells and Senior Transportation Planner Ellyn Shannon. Among the attendees were the Mayor of Cold Spring, Seth Gallagher, and County Executive Paul Eldridge. The meeting started at 6:30 pm and continued with a steady stream of comments until shortly before 8pm.
Topics were wide-ranging: winter snow schedules; management of snow in the station parking lot and the station; horn blowing; requests for quiet cars; schedules of late night trains from Grand Central Terminal; quality of on-board speaker systems; overnight parking; rowdy passengers attending games at Yankee Stadium and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day; and a call for WiFi on cars. Of particular interest to Mayor Gallagher was the condition of the Lunn Terrace Bridge which spans the tracks. While the town maintains the road surface, Metro-North Railroad (MNR) is responsible for the bridge structure. There are visible signs of deterioration, rusting and falling concrete, and he is looking to MNR’s capital program for needed repairs.
A summary of the comments have been sent to MNR and the Council will be following up on the points that were made. Mr. Zuckerman is planning on holding three more open houses around the County and they will be publicized in local newspapers in advance.