Despite efforts to speed up construction, the Penn Access project is still behind schedule, and the MTA blames Amtrak for not providing the resources required to stay on “track.”
The Penn Access project will bring four new Metro-North stations to Co-op City, Morris Park, Parkchester/Van Nest and Hunts Point, connecting the East and South Bronx neighborhoods — as well as Westchester and Connecticut — to Penn Station on the west side of Manhattan. Most of the project takes place along a 6-mile section of the Hell Gate line, which is owned by Amtrak. The MTA says the $2.8 billion project will have the potential to reduce commutes to midtown Manhattan by up to 50 minutes.
In January, MTA representatives said the project was falling behind schedule and could potentially be delayed by 6-9 months. They blamed Amtrak for the holdup, saying the company wasn’t providing the access or resources that it committed to, particularly service outages needed for construction and “force account” staff, which references Amtrak workers that are supposed to help MTA’s labor force.
Tom McGuinness, the MTA project executive, said in January that he believed efforts between Amtrak and MTA to recover the blow could bring the project back to its original schedule.
But his projection proved to be too hopeful. McGuinness announced on Monday that the recovery plan was unsuccessful and the projected substantial completion has indeed been pushed back to late 2027 from March 2027.
To move forward from the mess, Amtrak agreed to allow track access for workers through a 24-7 track outage that began in March and will continue until September to speed up construction.
While the outage has allowed the MTA to make progress, it won’t be enough to gain back lost time.
With the agency continuing to suffer from a lack of workforce support from Amtrak, the MTA has not been able to take advantage of the round-the-clock access, MTA officials said.
“Each day that goes by, we may lose another day in terms of the schedule because of this,” said Jamie Torres-Springer, the president of MTA Construction and Development. “So it’s a problematic circumstance.”
But Amtrak providing the long-term outage is a notable step, as the company didn’t fulfill its promised service outages for even a single continuous weekend during the first year officials needed to access the site, Torres-Springer said.
“And that’s a big deal, to agree to a long-term outage on the Northeast Corridor,” he added. “We appreciate that they did that. Unfortunately, having given us 24 hours of track access, they weren’t able to give us 24 hours of support.”
In the meantime, the agency is in talks with Amtrak and plans to find more “creative solutions” to get more work done, according to Torres-Springer.
The MTA is continuing to work with Amtrak to mitigate delays, such as with additional dedicated Amtrak workers, additional outages and work rule adjustments to improve productivity within the limited resources, McGuinness said.
“If we are successful in implementing these mitigations, we remain hopeful that we may be able to reduce further delays to the project schedule,” McGuinness added.
Amtrak spokesperson Jason Abrams answered a question posed by the Bronx Times about why Amtrak hasn’t been able to provide agreed upon support by saying that “is not a question for Amtrak,” as the MTA manages the project with support from Amtrak.
“Our infrastructure is getting updated, we are investing $500 million in it, and we are single tracking NEC (Northeast Corridor) trains north of the station to accommodate the work,” Abrams said. “We want to complete it as soon as possible, albeit safely and within budget, as well.”
Along with the new East Bronx route, the project includes the option to expand the New Rochelle rail yard, which was awarded in December 2022 — a year after a Penn Access agreement was announced — according to McGuinness.
The four new Metro-North stations were initially announced in 2018, but MTA and Amtrak’s differences stalled an agreement.
The project was delayed as MTA and Amtrak worked to allocate resources, like the workforce size and time allocated to track outages, MTA’s Dave Steckel told the Bronx Times when the deal was announced in December 2021.
The design-build process for the project construction began in the fall of 2022, with a groundbreaking ceremony in December 2022.
“Both Amtrak and MTA were pointing fingers at each other, you do it, you do it,” U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who took credit for brokering the deal, told the Bronx Times at the time.
Reach Aliya Schneider at aschneider@schnepsmedia.com or (718) 260-4597. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
