NEW YORK — A gasoline rationing plan that lets motorists fill up every other day went into effect in New York this morning, as utility crews made some progress erasing outages that put thousands of new homes and businesses in the dark in a region still reeling from Superstorm Sandy.

Police enforced the new system at filling stations in New York City and on Long Island as drivers turned out before dawn to line up for their rations. At a Hess station in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, drivers said it appeared to be working.

Luis Cruz, 35, of the Bronx, gassed up the Dodge minivan he uses as a pet chauffeur.

“It’s a lot better,” Cruz said. “A couple of days ago I waited four hours. They should have done this a long time ago.”

The line to the station was just a block and a half long this morning, and customers said they waited about 15 minutes. Last week, some lines stretched for a mile or more.

“This is designed to let everybody have a fair chance, so the lines aren’t too oppressive and that we can get through this,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Only a quarter of the city’s gas stations were open, the mayor said. Some were closed because they were out of power, others because they can’t get fuel from terminals and storage tanks that can’t unload.

A nor’easter brought gusting winds, rain and snow on Wednesday and early Thursday before it moved on. Snow blanketed several states from New York to New England and stymied recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy as additional storm-weakened trees snapped and more power lines came down.

Thousands of utility customers, mostly in New York and New Jersey, have been left waiting for their electricity to come back on.

An angry Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the calls for an investigation Thursday, ripping the utilities as unprepared and badly managed.

Cuomo appears to be all by himself among the New York area’s big three politicians.

Bloomberg defended the city’s power company, Consolidated Edison, and said it has done a good job in recent years. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praised the utilities, saying he expects all of his state to have power back by early Sunday.