Connecticut’s transportation commissioner has rejected criticism that his department is more concerned with reliability than with safety on the Metro-North Railroad.
One member of the National Transportation Safety Board rebuked the Malloy administration for what he said was an obsession with on-time performance, something that he said contributed to safety problems. Robert Sumwalt’s criticisms referred to a letter sent this week by DOT Commissioner James Redeker to Metro-North asking for an assessment of service delays.
Speaking on WNPR’s Where We Live, Redeker said he’s concerned about customer criticisms, but he’d never put reliability over safety. "Frankly, you can’t run a reliable system unless it’s safe and in good repair," he said, "and my reaction to the customer service report was, first we do safety, first we deal with infrastructure, but, we can’t lose sight of the fact that what people depend on on a train system is reliable service. They want to know the train’s coming when it says, and gets to its destination when they say. I don’t think anyone would disagree that those are priorities that can be mutually achieved."
The NTSB just issued a report on a special investigation into five major accidents on Metro North in an eleven-month period. The board is making 17 separate safety recommendations.
