WASHINGTON — Responding to criticism on a number of fronts, Amtrak President Roger Harris said the company’s plan for repairs to New York’s East River Tunnel is “the safest, most efficient, reliable, and timely to complete the full rehabilitation … making it the best use of taxpayer investments.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, U.S Rep. Mike Lawler , and officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have all expressed concern over the impact to Amtrak passengers and commuters as a result of the plan [see “New York governor asks Amtrak …,” Trains News Wire, April 29, 2025]. It calls for the repair of two of the tunnel’s four tubes damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, with one tube removed from service at a time. The work is expected to take three years.
In a Wednesday, April 30, statement, Harris said Amtrak “has coordinated with — and obtained approval from — MTA and NJ Transit for [the] East River Tunnel rehab service plan several months ago, which balances impact to our commuter partners, as well as Amtrak and [New York State Department of Transportation] service to Albany. In addition, MTA has approved the construction plans, designs, and supported the application for funding for this project — which has already been obligated by USDOT. The contractor is ready to start, as they were given Notice to Proceed a year ago and is already committed to a work schedule.”
Amtrak did consider the “repair in place” approach called for by Hochul as part of evaluation with MTA and NJ Transit of “several construction plans utilizing internationa; best practices,” Harris said, and the evaluation resulted in some improvements to the original plan.
“Major construction work will still begin on May 9,” the statement says, “after MTA delayed the work for more than seven months due to their lateness in completing work for their Eastbound Re-Route project.” The company is working with MTA to mitigate the delay and find ways to shorten the overall outage, Harris said, and is “eager to partner with the MTA on [Hochul’s] suggestion of using their commuter trains to provide more options and solutions for our customers.”
Hochul, in her April 28 letter to Harris and Amtrak Board Chair Anthony Coscia, suggested commuter cars could be used to add capacity to Empire Service trains to address the car shortage resulting from the removal of Amtrak’s Horizon cars form service.
The phased approach listed by the governor makes no sense. Amtrak essentially wants to strip everything from the bores and start over. Phased approach would maybe do 100 feet if lucky then reconnect everything. All the splices on electrical work is a receipt for future failure 5 – 10 years in the future. No electrician wants to do that. This Amtrak way everything should last another 75 – 100 years. I just hope that the work is called for can be done 24 / 7 with just a few holidays off.
The Amtrak way will also not have construction workers interfering with each other in an enclosed area.