Marjorie Anders Quotations

When you're walking from the Broadhurst, those eight minutes make a huge difference. They could be the difference between a hectic end to a night on the town and a leisurely one.

We are actively at the bargaining table, and we already have agreements with one-third of our work force, and the terms are reasonable and fair. Obviously we're going to have similar agreements with ... these other unions.

It would be pointless. We have only three trains (between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.), and they arrive roughly every 30 minutes. If PATH ran every six minutes, nobody from Metro-North would be getting on them.

The choice was between shutting down service or delaying service, because the recovery operation would have blocked the yard, too. So we decided to wait until after the morning rush to do the job.

The M-7 is the best performing car that Metro-North has ever had. It survived last winter without a single weather-related breakdown. It performed in today's storm without incident. The M-7 travels more than 700,000 miles without a breakdown, although the contract specified only 100,000 miles between breakdowns. The M-7 put Metro-North on track for a record on-time performance for 2005 of more than 97 percent.

We are declining to discuss the details of the bargaining. We're doing our bargaining at the table.

December is an anomaly. We had an array of trouble. We had contractor problems, where contractors weren't able to clear the tracks in time for rush hour. We had a broken rail, missing third-rail shoes, locomotive engine failures, and then we had the (New York City transit) strike in December. That affected all the lines because of slower boarding and congestions. We had trains stacked.

People have told us in letters and phone calls that they have to jog from Lincoln Center to make their train. We hear plenty of tales of missed trains.

People in the community who served on our advisory panel about the project told us they wanted the station to have a sense of place, an identity as a destination, and that's what these signs are designed to do.

Metro-North is interested in a regional solution to the traffic problem and moving people where they want to go. Many of the people in Orange and Rockland are interested in going to Manhattan, but there are trans-corridor options that are going to be studied. We are not predisposed to any option.