Yesterday, 25% of the trains between Albany and Penn Station stopped and won’t resume for several years, but as the foolish and unneeded Amtrak-imposed cuts got underway with the potentially “catastrophic” and “devastating” impact of the imminent closure of part of the East River Tunnel looming, so did New York leaders, who are fighting back hard to reverse this gigantic mistake by the federal railroad monopoly before it’s too late.
Gov. Hochul, a Democrat, and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who may be challenging Hochul next year, both agree: Amtrak must change direction and repair the vital tunnel nights and weekends, as was done with the L-train. The tunnel was set to close yesterday along with the Albany service cuts, but the closure has been pushed to May 9, and as Blakeman points out, “this delay presents a critical opportunity to reassess and improve the construction plan to better protect the commuting public.”
That’s what Blakeman said in his Monday afternoon letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, asking that the tunnel be repaired nights and weekends. Shortly thereafter Hochul wrote to Amtrak Chair Tony Coscia and President Roger Harris asking the same thing. Not written to was the Amtrak CEO, Steve Gardner, who was rightly fired last month by President Trump and Duffy.
But despite Gardner being properly ousted, his awful plan to close the tunnel for all least three years remains on course. When Amtrak Joe Biden was in office, he let Gardner and the railroad do whatever they wanted. Trump and Duffy have to say no and listen to the bipartisan pleas from New York.
In the morning, before the Blakeman and Hochul letters, LIRR President Rob Free explained at a MTA Board meeting: “We reinforced our position that the outage should be overnights and weekends to lessen the risk to our operation. We also reminded them that we are the largest carrier, commuter rail, in between Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and ourselves, into Penn Station and we have the most at risk with this outage.”
Free was even more forceful in an April 9 letter to Amtrak that was released yesterday: “With one of four tunnels out of service for re-construction, losing access to a second tunnel due to an infrastructure failure would be catastrophic. A ‘minor’ issue that could have been mitigated with all four tunnels in service could very quickly result in suspension of service in or out of Penn Station. As the largest carrier operating in Penn Station, a service suspension for any duration would be devastating to the hundreds of thousands of LIRR customers.”
So 25% of all Albany service is now gone for years to come, along with 10% of inbound LIRR rush to Penn (which has already been canceled in anticipation of the coming tunnel closure). Then add in the huge risks every day to the remaining LIRR trains when the tunnel is closed. And for what? For nothing.
Amtrak must be forced to adopt the repair-in-place method. At an absolute minimum, the May 9 closing and the start of demolition must be frozen until there is a new Amtrak CEO. The discredited plan of the CEO fired by the Trump administration cannot be on autopilot. That new CEO needs to come in and get smart, saving the commute of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
