Dear Governor Hochul,
I wanted to provide you with an update on the East River Tunnel Rehabilitation (ERT) project since my last letter the morning of Friday, May 2.
Last Friday afternoon, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) via Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) informed Amtrak that their East-Bound Reroute (EBRR) project, which was already six months late, is once again experiencing delays and will not be completed on schedule. As a result of the latest delay, the planned May 9 ERT first tube closure will now need to be pushed back by at least one week. In light of this delay, and the concerns you and other stakeholders raised regarding the service plans, we are working with our partners at MTA and NJ TRANSIT to move the start of construction by two weeks to May 23.
Amtrak would like your leadership and support to facilitate a meeting with you, LIRR and Metro-North Railroad (MNR) to discuss additional, innovative and creative solutions to mitigate impact on Empire Service and further protect LIRR service reliability, such as leveraging commuter rolling stock and/or service to Grand Central Terminal as you suggested in your letter. Please understand our intent for this meeting is not to revisit the dialogue around our approach to the rehabilitation of the ERT as this approach has been thoroughly vetted and agreed upon by MTA, NJ TRANSIT, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). A total singular tube shutdown is the most responsible method and the only way to fix the damage inflicted by Superstorm Sandy. Any other solution would be an expensive, short-term band-aid and a disservice to passengers and taxpayers. Rather, we’re focused on identifying any potential blind spots that may have been overlooked by our combined operations teams while developing the service plan over the past 10 months. We would like to work with you to take advantage of the time created by the delay to refocus on collaborative mitigation solutions.
In closing, we believe it is important to present a united front to the traveling public through demonstrating that we are aligned in our commitment to the success of rehabilitating this essential piece of American infrastructure through transparency and collaboration while simultaneously committing to a goal of minimal impact to passengers. The time is now to move this project forward for the State of New York, the Northeast Corridor, and to ultimately reaffirm that both of our organizations are good stewards of this significant taxpayer investment.
We look forward to hearing back on your availability.
Sincerely,
Roger Harris
President