(The following story by Greg Marano and Ken Valenti appeared on the Poughkeepsie Journal website on August 18, 2008
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — If Metro-North Railroad ran some trains to New York’s Pennsylvania Station from Poughkeepsie, Nadine Andros would relish the added option.
The Hyde Park resident normally commutes from the City of Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Terminal and walks to her advertising office across the street. But a couple times a week, she has to visit clients in New Jersey. To take a train from Poughkeepsie to Penn Station and transfer to a New Jersey Transit train would save her a two-train subway ride each way.
“On days like that, that would be a big plus,” Andros said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has a $1.2 billion plan to run some Metro-North trains to the station between Seventh and Eighth avenues and 31st and 33rd streets. It’s a sort of flip side to the much larger $7.2 billion East Side Access project that will bring some Long Island Rail Road trains to a station being created below Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street at Park Avenue.
Removing some Long Island Rail Road trains from Penn Station, which is booked solid with more than 1,300 train arrivals and departures a day on its 21 platforms, could allow Metro-North trains to enter the station on Amtrak tracks.
New trains needed
But first Metro-North would need new trains and diesel locomotives able to use Amtrak’s tracks on two lines, the Empire Line along the west side of Manhattan and the Hell Gate Line that goes through Queens and the Bronx. Plus, 880 yards of new third rail would be added to the Hell Gate Line. Metro-North also plans to build five new stations in Manhattan and the Bronx along the lines.
The two projects together would make for a “more balanced transportation system,” the MTA said on its Web site.
Some commuters are skeptical the Metro-North project will come about soon.
“Sounds great, if they can do it in my lifetime,” said Leon Horman, a Yorktown resident who works for Thomson Reuters at Hudson and Houston streets.
“Have faith,” Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. “Support the capital program. We need to expand the system. Everybody knows the transit system is bulging.”
While the MTA has touted the progress of the East Side Access project, offering reporters tours of the tunnels being bored, there is less talk about the Penn Station Access program. The MTA had planned to set aside $400 million – a third of the cost – in a $29.6 billion capital plan proposed in February to demonstrate projects that could be helped by funds raised with a congestion pricing plan. But the pricing plan, which would have charged motorists $8 to drive into Manhattan below 60th Street on weekdays, died in April when the state Assembly refused to vote on it.
Now, the railroad plans to include some funding for the Penn Station Access project in its 2010-14 capital plan to be proposed in late 2009, Anders said. Meanwhile, the railroad plans to revamp a study, begun years ago but never completed, of environmental effects the project would bring, she said. It will be submitted to the Federal Transit Administration, she said.
Study is planned
In the fall, the MTA plans to hire a consultant to study how Penn Station could be used by Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, which all use the station now, as well as Metro-North. It will consider the Access to the Region’s Core project that includes boring new tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan and increasing Pennsylvania Station capacity.
But money is short, so much so the MTA has proposed an 8 percent fare and toll increase next year for its trains, buses, bridges and tunnels to help cover a projected $900 million shortfall. The agency is looking for an additional 5 percent increase in 2011. Other large projects, such as the Second Avenue subway and the Seventh Avenue subway extension, have had completion dates pushed back by the financial problems.
“We’re facing some pretty tough times right now because more and more people are looking for transit options, and there simply isn’t enough money for all of these projects,” said Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “We’re calling on our leaders to show some leadership and get some more money into these transit projects. … The MTA is in such a fiscal crisis right now that without a lot of money going into our transit network, projects like this are probably in the distant future.”
Tracks are in place
Anders said the Penn Station Access project is relatively inexpensive, mainly because the tracks are in place. Amtrak’s Empire Line runs from Penn Station up the west side of Manhattan to meet with Metro-North’s Hudson Line just above the Spuyten Duyvil station. Along that line, Metro-North would create stations at West 62nd Street and West 125th Street. Heading east from Penn Station, Amtrak’s Hell Gate Line runs into Queens and up through the south and east Bronx, joining Metro-North’s New Haven Line just before New Rochelle. Metro-North would create stations in Hunts Point, Parkchester and Co-op City.
Metro-North’s Harlem Line does not connect to an Amtrak route.
“Metro-North access to Penn Station would really help the Bronx and especially neighborhoods like Hunts Point and Co-op City,” Slevin said. “It would help improve their transit access both into Manhattan and north to job opportunities outside New York City.”
Tony Meo lives in the City of Poughkeepsie and works at 52nd Street and Broadway. He said a ride into Penn would simplify the subway leg of his commute.
“It would cut the commute down by 20 minutes, a half-hour,” Meo said.
Noreen Ryan of Pine Plains is a nurse on the upper east side.
“Penn wouldn’t help me at all,” she said. If Metro-North were to make any service enhancement, she would rather see the railroad extend the Hudson Line farther north.
Daniel Schultzsmith of the Town of Poughkeepsie would rather see more parking in Poughkeepsie than a train into Penn. Working for an Internet company in Soho, he thinks added parking would be more beneficial for him than riding into a different terminal.
“It’s not that much of a hassle going across town,” he said. “Some people think it is, but as long as you can navigate the subway, you’re good.”