TRANSKRIPT 🔗
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0.2.
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That is the gap in percentage points between the highest and lowest of Metro North's three big lines over the last 12 months, according to the MTA's own data.
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Every morning, somebody on a Westchester platform swears their line is the best one.
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Every morning, the spreadsheet is less certain.
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Hudson, Harlem, or New Haven, which line is the best?
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This is the Friday Intel.
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Let's go deeper.
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Welcome to the Friday Intel from I Live Here Westchester.
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Every Friday, we go deeper on one data story that affects your life in Westchester County this week.
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Which Metro North Line is the best for commuters?
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Last month we weighed New York against New Haven on pizza, and both sides turned out to be right about different things.
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New Haven is back, this time as a railroad.
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The city has range.
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Our source is the MTA's own on-time performance data set on the state open data portal.
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It counts the share of trains that reach their final stop within five minutes and 59 seconds of schedule.
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We average the monthly scores from October 2025 through September 2026.
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Here are the averages, the Hudson Line, 97.4% on time.
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New Haven, 97.3%, Harlem, 97.2%.
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That is the whole race.
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Harlem and New Haven are four hundredths of a point apart.
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The Hudson Line has the river, the New Haven line has Connecticut.
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The Harlem Line has Wassack, which is fun to say.
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The fine print.
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These are whole line numbers, not Westchester numbers.
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Each line runs well past the county.
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The Hudson to Poughkeepsie, the Harlem to Wasaic, the New Haven into Connecticut.
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Nobody sliced out the Westchester stops, and it is a plain average of twelve monthly scores with no waiting for how many trains ran.
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Month by month, the lines trade places like commuters swapping seats.
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Hudson finished on top in four months.
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New Haven, four, Harlem, three.
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In September, Harlem and New Haven tied at ninety-seven point eight, with Hudson at ninety-seven point seven.
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A simple month-by-month comparison we ran ourselves.
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Our arithmetic and not the MTAs found gaps too small to separate from ordinary monthly noise.
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On overall on time rate, the lines cannot be separated.
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Split by rush hour, and the gaps widened, though still by a small margin.
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On morning peak trains, Hudson averaged 95.5, Harlem 95.1, and New Haven 94.6.
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In the evening, it flips.
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New Haven leads at ninety-eight, about nine-tenths of a point ahead of Hudson at ninety seven point one, and one and a half ahead of Harlem at ninety six point five.
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New Haven is last in the morning and first at night.
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Those gaps are bigger than the overall one and they point in opposite directions.
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Here is what caught me off guard when I dug into this.
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The biggest swing in this data is not between lines.
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It is one winter.
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In January 2026, morning peak trains on the Hudson and Harlem lines were on time only 84.4% of the time.
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That is about 16% late.
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New Haven was 87.8.
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In February, Hudson 89, Harlem 88.6, New Haven 87.5.
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All three lines were lower together, two months running.
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The data does not say why.
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Three lines moving at once points to something they share, but not what.
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We also checked the two winters before it and they look normal.
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If you rode in at rush hour last winter, you had a similar ride on any of the three.
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So last January all three lines had a rough morning.
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What this means for you.
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Over the past year, about ninety-seven of every hundred trains on any of these three lines finish within six minutes of schedule.
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If you board at Port Chester Rye or New Rochelle, you ride New Haven, Tarrytown or Croton Harmon, the Hudson, White Plains or Bedford Hills, the Harlem.
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Pick your town for the fares, the parking, and the walk to the station.
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The lines may still differ inside Westchester, and this data set cannot show it, so if your train is late, you are allowed to be annoyed, and keep one eye on this winter, because all three lines were lower together last January, and the data cannot say it will not return.
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What this cannot tell you, how crowded the train was, what you paid, or how late the late ones ran.
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It counts trains, not minutes, and not comfort.
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That is your Friday intel.
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If this was useful, share it with someone who lives here.
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I'll see you Monday on the Westchester Brief.
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I'm Jim, and I live here.