The ongoing problems with Long Island Rail Road service to and from Penn Station are nothing new and will continue for years to come.
“Canceled, Diverted or Reduced Stop Trains Have Been Restored, They’ll Go Back To Being Just Late” (Editorial Cartoon — September 14).
The LIRR on time performance numbers are rigged.
Any train arriving within 100 feet of a Penn Station platform within five minutes and 59 seconds is considered “on time.”
For many LIRR commuters who have to arrive at work on time without being late six minutes or more, I doubt their boss would be happy.
The LIRR definition of “on time” is just like a teacher giving students a passing grade by rigging the results.
In the 1990’s, the MTA and LIRR conducted the East River Tunnels Life Safety Study.
This report documented the need for investing several hundred million dollars to bring the East River tunnels back up to a state of good repair.
All four tunnels were built between 1904 and 1909 and have outlived their useful life.
They have been in desperate need of major upgrades decades ago.
Sadly, since that study, over the past Five Year Capital Plans, the MTA and LIRR programmed insufficient funding to perform these tasks.
This has resulted in the frequency of major service disruptions due to storm and signal problems in the East River tunnels increasing.
These problems also occur between the tunnel portals and Harold Interlockings, west of the Woodside station.
The MTA and LIRR also failed to development and complete a specific implementation plan with Amtrak, who actually owns the tunnels, to complete this badly needed work within our life time.
Penn Station is currently operating at 100 percent capacity. If one of the four tunnels is temporarily out of service, the result is numerous delays and cancellation of trains.
Both the $29 billion Hudson River Gateway Tunnel and $1.6 billion Moynihan Station Farley Building projects fail to add any new additional Penn Station tracks or platforms.
This results in no capacity increase for any new rush hour Amtrak, NJ Transit, LIRR or future new Metro North trains to serve Penn Station.
The Federal Transit Administration provided $432 billion in June 2016 to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
These funds were intended to be spent quickly for 2012 Super Storm Sandy related work in the East River tunnels to bring them up to a state of good repair.
Amtrak has said they will not begin substantial work until 2024, after LIRR begins East Side Access service to Grand Central Terminal.
Based upon the Master Grant Agreement between the MTA and FTA, Uncle Sam has the option to de-obligate these funds and close out the grant.
There are 98 other senators and over 400 Congress members keeping tabs on how the MTA spends federal dollars.
They have their own projects and programs looking for funding.
Both the federal and MTA Office of Inspector General are not going to look the other way and ignore this inability to spend taxpayers dollars in a timely fashion.
Has the MTA, on behalf of the LIRR, which was awarded the federal funding, ever come up with a plan to commit spending these dollars on this critical tunnel work today and not years down the road?
There is way to find out.
As part of requirements contained within all master grant agreements, using the FTA Transit Award Management System, the MTA provides updated Quarterly Financial and Milestone Progress Reports to the FTA on active capital improvement projects and programs.
It might make interesting reading to see what the original project implementation milestones were versus current status today under this grant.
Delaying the start of work by six years from 2019 to 2025 will increase costs by 300 percent or $600 million to $1 billion.
How will Amtrak and the MTA come up with an almost $600 million shortfall?
Continued deterioration of the East River tunnels over this time period could result in an increased scope of work and accompanying service disruptions.
Only one of four East River tunnels can be taken out of service at a time for reconstruction.
It will take one to two years to finish work on each tunnel.
As a result, this project may not be completed until 2032.
Until this work is over, it is virtually impossible to increase rush hour Penn Station capacity and guarantee reliable uninterrupted service.
There will continue to be a three-way competition between Amtrak, LIRR and NJ Transit for rush hour access to Penn Station.
Metro North will also be looking for future access.
This will result in a four-way competition.
There may be no changes to the level of reliable Penn Station rush hour service in the foreseeable future.
Larry Penner
(Larry Penner is a transportation historian, advocate and writer who previously worked in 31 years for the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office)
