Amtrak’s president is accusing New York state and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials of spreading “misinformation and misleading facts” about the rail agency’s $1.6 billion plan to shutter one of four East River tunnels for repairs over the next four years.
The MTA’s board approved a resolution Wednesday calling on Amtrak to reconsider temporarily shutting down tunnels, beginning on May 9, as part of its repairs for the East River tubes, which were inundated with corrosive saltwater in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy. Transit officials say they’re concerned that the approach could lead to rush-hour service disruptions for Long Island Rail Road commuters. The MTA is urging Amtrak to avoid a tunnel outage by carrying out the work on nights and weekends, like the MTA did for repairs to the L train East River tunnel in 2019. Hochul made the same request in a letter earlier this week.
Amtrak president Roger Harris rebuffed the criticism in a Friday letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, calling New York’s objections “surprising” given that the MTA approved the tunnel rehabilitation and outage approach in October 2023. Harris also noted that the authority worked on a technical committee for the project and assisted in procuring the project’s contractor, a joint venture of construction juggernaut Skanska and the Bronx-based E-J Electric Installation Co.
“We recognize the challenges this type of work presents for all involved,” wrote Harris. “But this underscores the importance of aligned public messaging. The project’s engineering, safety, and operational requirements have been transparent from the start and fully vetted by your agencies.”
The tunnel project is designed to revitalize two of the four century-old tubes beneath the East River, which the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak rely on for service. The two tunnels remained structurally sound in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, but have since deteriorated and suffered system failures, and now require a full reconstruction of their power, signal, track and structural systems, according to Amtrak.
In his letter, Harris claims that the construction needed to repair the tunnels is more extensive than the work carried out for the L train tunnel due to “substantial” differences in the infrastructure. For example, Amtrak argues that for safety and fire prevention reasons the agency will encase high-voltage cables that power trains in concrete along the tunnel, instead of relocating those cables to wall-mounted racks, such as in the L train tunnel.
“Unlike the MTA’s Canarsie Tunnel project, this effort will not patch and monitor for degradation. It will fully replace all tunnel systems,” wrote Harris. Amtrak, he said, explored a similar approach for the cables but claimed it “could not meet required fire ratings or egress space standards.”
In a Friday statement to Crain’s LIRR President Rob Free shot back that “the MTA has been saying for years that Amtrak’s flawed skeleton of a plan should be reconsidered.”
Free told reporters during a Wednesday briefing that Amtrak’s approach is “extremely risky” because closing a tunnel “leaves little to no room for error.”
“The slightest deviation could have significant impacts to our operations, reliability, including possible shutdowns of service depending on the issue,” said Free.
Under the plan, the LIRR would run the same number of trains it does now — 461 through the East River tunnels daily. But the outage will result in shorter intervals between trains arriving and departing Penn Station, “so even a small delay could have cascading impacts,” he added.
“Amtrak’s track record, for us, is a little terrifying,” MTA board Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said during the briefing. “ We’re not going to sit idly by while our riders suffer because Amtrak just wants to do things the way they’ve always been done.”
