Riders give ‘third world’ Metro-North a D+ in survey

Fed-up Metro-North commuters gave their troubled railroad a lowly D+ in a survey released Monday.

Almost 90 percent of the 642 riders surveyed online by the Commuter Action Group said late and delayed trains are a big problem.

Over 60 percent said they have complained about service problems to their conductor or to Metro-North, and 90 percent pointed their fingers at management for the railroad’s woes.

Others blamed Connecticut’s DOT and their fellow riders.

Jim Cameron, founder of the group, said the idea of the survey is to give a voice to commuters.

“They have clearly spoken,” he said. “We now have a credible baseline against which to measure improvements in the coming months.”

Just 56 percent said they felt safe riding the railroad, and 29 percent weren’t sure.

A scathing federal report released in March said Metro-North had been more focused on their on-time performance than safety.

Almost 270 riders left comments about the railroad when they finished the survey.

“Riding Metro-North is like being transported to a third-world nation,” griped one respondent.

Another Connecticut rider wrote that they were so frustrated with their service recently they got off a train and took a $150 cab to a conference instead.

The feedback was shared with the railroad and DOT.

A Metro-North spokeswoman said the survey was unscientific, and that a survey last year found that 93 percent of randomly selected 5,000 riders were satisfied or very satisfied with their service.

“The newly created Commuter Action Group’s unscientific online survey falls short of that standard,” said Marjorie Anders.