Today, against the urgent pleas of New York leaders across the political spectrum, from Gov. Hochul to Mayor Adams to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to Reps. Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik, Amtrak is starting demolition work on the East River Tunnel. It is a terrible decision, risking the rides of more than 100,000 commuters on the Long Island Rail Road traveling to and from Penn Station.
The construction has already caused the cancellation of 25% of all Amtrak trains between Penn and Albany and the elimination of 10% of the LIRR’s morning inbound rush into Penn and it will last for at least three years.
While two of the four tubes of the East River Tunnel, Line 1 and Line 2, were damaged by Superstorm Sandy flooding in 2012, the repairs should be done nights and weekends, keeping all four tubes operating during the daytime, which is what the New Yorkers all want. That’s how competent railways conduct repairs, avoiding disrupting passenger service. But Amtrak is not a competent railway.
On May 22, Tony Coscia, chairman of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and two executive vice presidents, Gery Williams, in charge of Service Delivery & Operations and Laura Mason, overseeing Capital Delivery, met with Hochul.
The promises and reassurances of Coscia and Williams and Mason will mean nothing if there’s a problem in one of the three other East River tubes, and the LIRR comes to a stop. That’s the well-founded fear of Rob Free, the president of the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest railway in the country, with 75 million passengers. There are often problems in one of the four tubes, making for a three-tube operation. But two-tube running is impossible for the LIRR’s daily 461 trains, along with those of Amtrak and NJTransit.
But let’s say that the inconceivable occurs and Amtrak can provide flawless operation every day for the next three years (or longer, as Amtrak is always missing its schedule, both on train arrivals and construction) then what has Amtrak been doing wrong all these decades?
