It’s been a week since Amtrak slashed service between Albany and Penn Station from 12 daily round trips to nine and also wiped out 10% of the Long Island Rail Road’s inbound trains to Penn at the peak hour of the morning rush in order to repair the East River tunnel. We and others warned that this was about to happen.
But Amtrak just doesn’t care.
Last Wednesday, Gov. Hochul wrote a public letter to Amtrak Chairman Tony Coscia and CEO Steve Gardner (neither of them New Yorkers) to please restore the Albany trains, a service that New York State funds.
Hochul explained that her transportation commissioner, Marie Therese Dominguez, had previously written to Amtrak seeking a restoration or other mitigation. We assume that Dominguez’ private Nov. 8 letter to Gardner (which we now have) was ignored, which is why Hochul went public.
Dominguez and Hochul are not alone. Amtrak ignores everyone, including members of Congress like Elise Stefanik and a half dozen of her New York colleagues, which is why on that same day that Dominguez wrote, we published an editorial calling on the newly reelected Donald Trump to get involved.
Stefanik asked that Amtrak delay its plans by 60 days to not disturb the busy holiday travel season and also to allow time to review alternative options, both very reasonable requests. But Amtrak just went ahead. Stefanik will soon be the U.S. ambassador to the UN, so she may have even more occasion to take the train from Manhattan to her upstate home. She should ask Trump to intervene.
The reduced schedule for the Albany route and the LIRR a.m. rush will persist for three years, but given Amtrak’s poor record, expect significantly longer. Besides fewer trains, having one of the four East River tubes closed will severely curtail the flexibility for Amtrak, the LIRR and NJTransit to operate should there be a problem with a train or a signal, turning a tolerable difficulty into a meltdown.
However, it’s not too late to hold off, as Amtrak has not started ripping up the rails in the East River tunnel yet.
There is another way to fix the damaged tunnel by doing repairs nights and weekends, which is the standard method around the world and as the MTA did with the L train and the F train. Metro-North is now doing some major repairs and upgrades under Park Ave. working nights and weekends.
Need more proof? Dominguez is also on the bistate Gateway Development Commission and was serving four years ago this week when GDC published a definitive study from the experts at London Bridge Associates proving that Amtrak’s underwater NYC tunnels can — and should — be fully repaired nights and weekends.
Amtrak spouted some nonsense and stuck to their plans to shut everything down, which is now happening under the East River. Amtrak Joe Biden never made his favored railroad catch up to the rest of the world. Trump must.
In her letter, Hochul also copied U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Railroad Administration boss Amit Bose. Don’t count on the FRA to set Amtrak straight; they are always in the engineer’s cab with Amtrak.
Last week, the FRA handed Amtrak $72 million for plans to tear to several Midtown swaths around Block 780 for an unneeded $18 billion Penn annex for the Gateway tunnel. Mr. Trump, please stop Amtrak.
