Waking up the sleeping giant of metropolitan mobility.

A great but untapped resource for reducing car use and improving the environment is the extensive network of commuter rail lines serving the NY/NJ/Connecticut metropolitan region. At present this system is focused almost entirely on hauling suburbanite commuters to and from the Manhattan business district, a task it does fairly well. But the commuter rail lines could do much much more. By greatly increasing frequency, and integrating fares with other transit units, the commuter rail lines can be transformed into a truly comprehensive web of regional mobility — a Regional Rail network.

Our Regional Rail Working Group was formed in 2002 with a simple mission: (1) to accelerate general understanding of the vast potential of NY’s commuter rail lines, thereby sidestepping the regional media’s pervasive market censorship and misinformation; and (2) to better coordinate the efforts of the area’s often underfunded and understaffed transit activist organizations. The purpose of the working group is to develop and advance plans for converting the region’s balkanized commuter rail lines, now run as de facto private fiefdoms, into a truly regional rail system, with fast, frequent service and affordable, integrated fares. Our Penn Station Metro-Hub plan sets the stage for doing this, with subsequent steps being access to Lower Manhattan and the Penn Station-Grand Central link. Finally, the group also considers changes to rapid transit and light rail transit that are "regional" in scale.