In a Congressional hearing Monday, Con Edison officials said they won’t pay damages to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or its riders for a 12-day rail disruption following a power failure last month.
In response, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, in a letter to MTA officials sent Oct. 28, requested “all possible legal action” be initiated to seek full reimbursement for the additional  project cost, service, lost revenue and fare credits to impacted customers.
“The negligence that underlies the outage must be rectified by Con Edison,” Malloy said. “I believe MTA has the responsibility to undertake legal action in order to avoid costs being shifted to Connecticut’s riders, and Connecticut stands ready to assist MTA in any legal action it undertakes.”
A 138,000-volt cable feeder, which supplies electricity to overhead train wires, lost power Sept. 25, affecting the daily commute of roughly 62,500 people for days.
Outages were estimated to cost the state’s economy nearly $62 million, according to a report by the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
The disruption cost the rail industry an estimated $3 million to run temporary diesel-powered trains and $5.3 million in lost ticket revenue, according to the report. On top of reimbursing monthly and weekly ticket holders for the disruption, the state also lost an estimated $2.2 million in net revenue.
