In the life of a train commuter, what difference does 15 minutes make?

Rosanna Karabetsos, a graduate of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, is a Brooklynette -- a professional dancer for the Brooklyn Nets NBA basketball team. It’s a dream job.

Still, she says, a faster train ride from Hartford to New York might have made her career goals attainable even sooner.

“I wouldn’t change any part of my journey,” says Karabetsos. “But I do know that if there was an express train from Union Station to Grand Central that got me there in an hour and a half for a decent amount of money, it would have changed everything.”

Ridership is steady on the Hartford Line, a commuter rail service linking New Haven with Springfield that debuted in 2018. Maybe too steady.

“We’re victims of our own success,” says DOT commissioner Joseph Giulietti. “We don’t have enough cars to handle all the demand that’s coming at us. We’re desperate to go get some more cars. … It’s one of the healthiest complaints you can get, that people are not only asking but demanding for more service."

Giulietti and Karabetsos, along with musician Bill Carbone (Max Creek, Rock and Roll Forever Foundation) and William Thomsen (Urban Engineers, Inc., APTA), talk Metro-North and the value of 15 minutes on the latest Capitol Watch podcast.