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FAIRFIELD, Conn. The Fairfield Metro train station officially opens for service on Monday, Dec. 5, the state Department of Transportation has announced. First Selectman Michael Tetreau, DOT Commissioner James P. Redeker and Black Rock Realty CEO Kurt Wittek will cut the opening ribbon Friday. The new station will give the town three stops on Metro-North's New Haven Line.
Tetreau told the Representative Town Meeting on Monday night that Fairfields work on the station is mostly done and that contractors are pretty much demobilized. The town still has to work on a few punch-list items to close out paperwork for state reimbursements, he said, but the actual construction work is finished.
All trains that stop at the station in Fairfield Center will stop at Fairfield Metro as well. Trains will stop three minutes earlier at Fairfield Metro heading to Grand Central and three minutes later heading to New Haven.
Tickets will cost the same as at the Fairfield Center and Southport stations. Ticket machines and booths will not offer tickets to Fairfield Metro until Jan. 2, according to Metro-North. Until then, commuters will have to ask for tickets to Fairfield.
Commuters with blue permits to the Fairfield train station will have to make a decision before Monday. The Fairfield Parking Authority issued those six-month permits in June to drivers who expressed interest in switching to the Fairfield Metro station.
The town asked those drivers to decide in October which station they wanted a permit for. But as of Tuesday more than 50 blue permit holders still had not responded. The blue permits expire once Fairfield Metro opens, so those commuters will have to sign up for a Metro permit, extend their Fairfield station reservation or pay the $6 daily parking fee starting Monday.
For those hoping to travel by bus, Greater Bridgeport Transit will start direct service to the station in January. Until then, commuters will have to use the closest available stop, which is on Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport.
Tetreau assured the RTM he would not sign over the deed to the parking lot to the state allowing the DOT to operate the station until he has a signed contract for the up to $3 million in extra grants promised to Fairfield to finish the project. Shortly after Tetreau took office, he broke the news to the town that the construction work was severely overbudget. In August, the RTM approved taking on up to $7.5 million in debt to cover the extra work.
At the time, the state agreed to pay $2 million to $3 million to help. As of Monday night, an official contract had not been signed, but Tetreau said he finished writing an agreement with the state Monday. If nothing changes when they send the draft back to us, that should be finalized this week, Tetreau said.
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