Amtrak Begins Work on East River Tunnel Project on May 9
By Hank Russell
Commuters who take the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) were in for a shock when Amtrak announced that it was closing one of the four East River tunnels used by LIRR trains to repair the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. According to Amtrak, the tubes will be closed one at a time and is expected to be completed within three years.
According to a report by Gothamist, 411 LIRR trains use those tunnels each day between Penn Station and Queens.
Amtrak President Roger Harris announced that, starting May 9, construction of the East River Tunnel (ERT) project will begin. The start was delayed seven months, according to Harris, because of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) “lateness in completing work for their Eastbound Re-Route project.”
However, Harris has worked with the MTA and New Jersey Transit in “evaluat[ing] several construction plans utilizing international best practices and has been open to alternative approaches, including the ‘repair in place’ approach, to achieve the full scope of work to ensure reliability and safety” during the project.
“This joint evaluation produced some improvements to our original plan and was incorporated into our design,” Harris stated. “However, the plan we are implementing proved to be the safest, most efficient, reliable, and timely to complete the full rehabilitation of East River Tunnel, making it the best use of taxpayer investments.”
Janno Lieber, chair of the MTA, told Gothamist that Amtrak’s record “is a little terrifying. 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.”
Gothamist quoted LIRR President Rob Free as saying, “The slightest deviation could have significant impacts to our operations, reliability, including possible shutdowns of service depending on the issue.”
The state has pledged to provide $1.6 billion for their repairs, according to The New York Post. Initially, Amtrak sought to shut down all three tunnels, which Governor Kathy Hochul said would disproportionately impact Empire Service riders — that is, the Amtrak riders who take the train between New York City and Albany.
“While I continue to be supportive of the efforts to rehabilitate the East River Tunnels, the decision to maintain service cuts amidst this latest delay — and backtracking on public commitments to increase capacity during the shutdown — shows a disregard for Empire Service passengers,” Hochul said. “Enough is enough. It’s far past time for Amtrak to put its passengers first, take a hard look at its construction plans and ensure access to reliable train travel throughout this key corridor.”
Hochul and the MTA also blasted the national commuter train company for refusing to limit repairs to nights and weekends.
“The greatest risk with this is that if something happens, something that’s mundane that happens every day that doesn’t cause a service disruption, with this type of outage it will exacerbate that type of incident and cause a service disruption we want to avoid,” Free said, according to the Post.
MTA Committee Member Marc Herbst, who is also the executive director of the Long Island Contractors; association, told the Post, “If service needs to be cut, I think they’re probably going to keep their trains running before ours if there’s any problems.”