Let LIRR maintain Penn tracks
Tracks in the East River tunnel which lead from New York's Penn Station Credit: AP Photo/ROBERT MECEA
The Long Island Rail Road runs three times as many trains out of Pennsylvania Station as Amtrak, and 10 times as many under the East River. Yet the federally funded and run railroad, not the LIRR, is in charge of maintaining the tracks in and out of the Manhattan terminal.
This week's Amtrak train derailment, and the announcement that New York will receive a huge pot of federal money for rail travel, make it even clearer that to have top-notch rail service in the future, the time has come for this arrangement to change.
Sunday's accident under the river -- the third Amtrak mishap and second Amtrak derailment since February to throw LIRR commuters into chaos -- might still have happened if the LIRR were in charge of those tracks. In that scenario, though, the LIRR, would rightly be blamed by its riders for a miserable week of canceled or delayed service.
Amtrak owns Penn Station, and the confusing relationship between it, the LIRR, Metro North, PATH and every commuter railroad in the United States has its roots in a private national passenger rail system built on huge early profits, then maintained despite massive modern losses. Amtrak handles practically all passenger rail travel between cities in the United States and none of the travel within cities. In places that have no commuter rail, Amtrak is the only provider, and it should run the train station. In a place like Penn Station, though, it really doesn't make sense for Amtrak, operating little of the service, to care for the tracks.
This matters today more than ever because the quality of future rail service in our region is being decided right now.
If the pieces mesh, improvements over the next five years could create an era of superb train service for New York in general and Long Island in particular. A big part of that came together this week when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced $354 million in federal funding for three New York State rail projects, stimulus money rejected by Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. The root purpose of the money is now improved high-speed rail service along the Northeast Corridor, and that, not overseeing local tracks, is where Amtrak plays its role.
The Long Island Rail Road will get $295 million of this pot, freed up by Republican governors fleeing mass transit, to reconfigure the Harold Interlocking junction in Queens, freeing up Amtrak trains considerably and alleviating delays for LIRR trains. This is happening alongside improvements at Jamaica Station and the East Side Access project, slated to give LIRR trains access to Grand Central Terminal by 2016. Combine all that with several smaller projects the LIRR hopes to complete -- and the promise of more and faster Amtrak Acelas speeding up and down the East Coast at 165 mph -- and the future looks good for rail travel.
But each organization must play its role. Amtrak should focus on providing efficient, affordable high-speed rail travel between cities. The LIRR needs to focus on Long Island commuters, and must be able to guarantee that the tracks and tunnels it uses are in good shape. Allowing Amtrak to oversee the tracks in and out of Penn Station, and particularly the ones under the East River, doesn't make any sense, and it could keep on derailing an otherwise smooth plan.
