Every day, around 460 Long Island Rail Road trains and the majority of the LIRR’s 250,000 daily riders pass through one of the four tubes under the East River connecting Penn Station to Queens and points beyond.
Yet thanks to Amtrak’s myopic decision making, their reliable rides will soon be in jeopardy.
Two tubes of the East River Tunnel — which Amtrak owns — were flooded and damaged by Hurricane Sandy. They need rehabilitation to keep them operational and safe for use for the foreseeable future.
The $1.6 billion in renovation and reconstruction work includes replacing the corroded concrete bench walls, which house the tunnel’s electrical equipment, as well as the old rock ballast track with newer track directly affixed to the concrete tunnel floor.
Sound familiar? If so, it’s because they are essentially the same types of repairs required for the rehab of the L train’s Canarsie Tunnel, which the MTA fixed in 2019. Instead of closing those tubes for years as initially envisioned, they were shut down on nights and weekends — certainly a nuisance to riders, but nowhere near the chaos that full closures would have created. It was an approach that saved time, money, and countless headaches for millions.
Even knowing this, Amtrak is planning to close two of the East River Tunnel’s tubes for 13 months apiece to do the work, requiring painful cuts to service of 10% of LIRR service into and out of Penn Station, and a 25% cut to trains on Amtrak’s Empire Line between Penn and Albany. A number of LIRR trips have been redirected to Grand Central and Atlantic Terminal, both of which are great alternatives, but riders are used to having a choice and deserve one.
Commuters faced with the shutdowns of the East River Tunnel should be irate that six years later we are back discussing the worthiness of the now-proven L train construction approach.
Amtrak’s plan will subject riders to major delays if a problem such as a disabled train, signal malfunction, or broken rail occurs in one of the three remaining tubes. Without the redundancy of the fourth tube, the resulting cascading delays will affect nearly all service in and out of Penn Station and disrupt the rest of the system for long periods of time. We saw that last Wednesday morning, when poor Amtrak quality control following an outage left tens of thousands of riders stranded.
Amtrak says the scope of work is too large to use the L train method. To those of us on the LIRR Commuter Council, that thinking deserves another, closer look.
After all, it’s hard to give Amtrak the benefit of the doubt. One only has to observe Amtrak’s woeful track record for keeping the Northeast Corridor running smoothly through New Jersey as an indication of their inability to handle serious repair projects. After meltdown after meltdown to their power systems last summer, affecting both Amtrak and NJTransit, New Jersey residents can only dream of the 97% on-time performance the LIRR has delivered as of late.
We’re also skeptical Amtrak can deliver on its stated timeline of completing the project within three years. Amtrak has a long history of causing delays to MTA projects due to their inability to adequately staff the work. It’s caused the MTA months, if not years, of delays and New York taxpayers untold millions of dollars. And the issue could be further exacerbated by retirements and layoffs within Amtrak as the Trump administration deprioritizes passenger rail. It could make the Summer of Hell look like a warm spring day.
If the project is delayed too long, it could also push back the opening of the Penn Station Access project, which will bring Metro-North to Penn Station, but that can’t happen until tunnel work is complete. A slew of new riders from the East Bronx will join the hundreds of thousands from Long Island to get into Manhattan quickly and efficiently, and they deserve a smart rehab project to prepare for their arrival.
The work on the East River Tunnel has languished long enough. It’s time to get it done better, faster and smarter — something the MTA excels at. Having them come in as consultants would ensure that everyone’s needs are met and schedules are held. Let’s get this project done right, with a proven method that will best serve our region’s riders.
Bringmann is an MTA Board member, chair of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, and chair of the LIRR Commuter Council.
