My understanding is that the platform is not long enough to accommodate the longer trains coming in from NYC, therefore, it was a planning/design blunder.

The platform length excuse is total BS. How many times have we heard the announcement "only doors in X-X cars will open at the next stop. Please make your way to the appropriate cars." Stratford for one is even shorter than the State Street platform.

This would be a great idea. It is a bit of a dangerous walk from union station to downtown. Whereas state terry us right there, next to the new apartment building and Elm City Market. Plus all of the metro north trains could easily start and end there because it is the end of the line.

This would be great for Wooster square and downtown neighborhoods, it is too far to walk to union station and the walk home from union station an be a bit dangerous at night

It would also be a great idea for people living in East Rock; I now longer live in East Rock (or New Haven, for that matter), but getting to the train station by a certain time was always a major issue, the Yale shuttles didn't help much.
Nowadays, I commute to New Haven for work. As I have relatively irregular hours, it would be highly useful if Metro North trains were to stop at the State Street station at different hours of the day; Generally, more frequent Metro North connections to New Haven would be desirable. At this point, I typically use my car to drive up here, simply because it's too time consuming - and unreliable - to get from and to Union Station once in New Haven, and because I have to wait at the station for and approximately one hour in case I miss a train - something that happened all too frequently in the past.

The voltage changes are past the MNR/Amtrak Division Post east of CP 274. There is a phase break in the wire there. The 405 M-8s (54.4% of weekday trains; 79% weekend trains) can utilize the power cycle in the catenary there, the remaining M-2/4/6 cars must move past there with their pantographs down if they go past the break which allows plenty of room for the trains before the break

State Street can hold 3 M-series cars (which is stupid in itself, being not all older M-series consists in service have a Triplet mixed in, and fewer M-2 cars are having B-end thru switches to allow for odd numbered car amounts), most times crews will only open a pair at State Street.

There is no need to turn EMUs, all a crew has to do is change ends, perform a brake test, and depart westward right then and there. And there is just enough room to the east where a train can clear without entering the phase break area, or entering into Amtrak territory, where they can switch from Track 4 to Track 6 (the State Street station tracks, a move I have made before with both EMUs and the MNR Inspection Train when it wasn't double-ended with diesels). And if a train craps out and needs to be taken out of the way, one of the NH Yard switching/yard crews can simply bring up an engine and haul it out the way, or even use an EMU pair to make such a move.

This results in no technical challenges except. The only real challenge is adding the stop to more trains on the schedule.

Great idea, I hope that this actually happens and does not just get disregarded. This is such an easy fix and would encourage more city residents to take the train and would relieve congestion on the major highways.

I REALLY would like to see this station used more as well; I'd use it every day if there were regular trains stopping here. They built the West Haven station and EVERY SINGLE TRAIN stops there now; it's so ridiculous that we can't get more trains at this already existing station. What on earth is the holdup??

They use this as a marketing tool to encourage people to move to downtown. It was a consideration that got me to move there. Unfortunately, I was quickly disappointed. Little effort was ever put into utilizing this expensive to build station. The schedule is also incredibly hard to understand and leaves many waiting for trains that will never arrive.

Plain laziness and more wasted tax dollars (mostly federal).

No city money to comfort lazy Yale people!

Union Station is A TEN MINUTE WALK AWAY!