Metro-North: You Can Still Get There From Here. Just Not As Easily.

It may be because Metro-North ridership is still down significantly — off by about 65% — from pre-pandemic levels.

Perhaps commuters are just used to the regional rail system taking away, rather than giving.

But Metro-North’s recent switch in service — longer trips, and the reduction of express trains — has generated little of the outrage usually associated with such changes.

It now takes 79 to 84 minutes — according to the timetables, anyway — to get from Westport to Grand Central on weekday mornings.

Afternoon/evening service is “quicker”: 70 to 76 minutes (63, on trains that discharge passengers only).

That’s still appreciably slower than our parents’ and grandparents’ commutes in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

Not to mention the lure of express trains. They’ve now joined other the Concorde as relics from a bygone — but speedier — era of transportation.

A train streaks through Westport. But it will stop often. (Photo/Patricia McMahon)