(Newsday posted the following article by Jennifer Sinco Kelleher on its website on December 19.)
NEW YORK — There will be a renewed push for MTA chairman Peter Kalikow’s long-sought-after dream of merging the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North when the proposal is resubmitted to the state legislature in January.
It comes just after Kalikow won a major victory by securing federal funding to give Long Islanders easier access to Manhattan’s East Side, a goal he said he wanted to accomplish before leaving his post. Federal officials have also promised to fund the Second Avenue subway, another of Kalikow’s pet projects.
But still elusive for the man who has headed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority since 2001 and who may soon be giving up the job is the merger of the region’s two commuter rails. Kalikow last month called it his greatest failure.
The proposal to merge the LIRR and Metro-North has been kicking around since at least October 2002, when MTA officials announced plans to seek state Legislature approval for the idea. At the time, MTA officials announced plans for a dramatic consolidation of the sister railroads, to be known as “MTA Rail Road.” Kalikow said then that the merger would “create a more efficient railroad; one with a broader regional focus.”
Over the years, the MTA has submitted several such proposals to the legislature.
Come January, it will be among the MTA proposals resubmitted, agency spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed Wednesday. Kelly did not cite specifics on the merger proposal.
Earlier this month, Kalikow announced his desire to resign, abiding by the wishes of Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer for a new MTA leadership structure.
Monday’s announcement from U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters committing 40 percent of the $6.3 billion it will cost to link LIRR commuters with Grand Central Terminal on the East Side may give Kalikow one less reason to stick around to mid-2007, which is when he had indicated he might leave.
“I would assume it would be earlier than that,” said Mitch Pally, an MTA board member from Stony Brook who predicts that Kalikow might be out by January or February. East Side access funding, Pally said, “removes one of the reasons why Peter indicated he wanted to stay.”
Kelly said he won’t speculate about when Kalikow will leave. Kalikow was traveling Wednesday and was not available, Kelly said.
Spitzer has already named Elliot “Lee” Sander as Kalikow’s replacement. Sander will take over as MTA chairman and also absorb outgoing MTA executive director Katherine Lapp’s duties. Lapp, who was named to the post shortly after Kalikow became chairman, submitted her resignation last week.
Even if the long-sought-after merger between LIRR and Metro-North doesn’t happen during Kalikow’s tenure, East Side access “is a much greater achievement than the lack of consolidation of the agencies as a negative point,” Pally said.
The MTA’s proposed 2007 budget already accounts for sharing services, such as finance and human resources, among MTA agencies, with an estimated savings of $11 million in 2008.
Mortimer Downey, who was MTA executive director during the late 1980s to early 1990s, said Monday’s development gives Kalikow the freedom to “write his own ticket as far as the length of his term.”
Should Kalikow decide to call it quits now, he’ll be known as the guy who made the East Side access plan come true, even though there are others who played a role over the years.
“I think the guy who carries it over the goal line gets the credit,” said Downey, who is now a transportation consultant living in Vienna, Va.
But if Kalikow does stick around to the spring, it won’t be because he’s holding out for a merger, said Beverly Dolinsky, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.
“I think he’s waiting around for the shovel to go into the ground for Second Avenue,” she said. “He wants a legacy.”