Readers Write: East Side access happening in slow motion

The Island Now

At a recent Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting, the MTA’s own independent engineering firm which provides oversight over various major capital construction projects including MTA Office of Capital Construction Long Island Rail Road Eastside Access to Grand Central Terminal announced that the project completion date may slip once again by one year from December 2022 to December 2023 and the costs might also increase.

We have heard this story over and over since 2001.

I have previously written and predicted about both possibilities over the past two years and sadly they have come true.

A cat has nine lives and this project may have already used them all up.

The original Full Funding Grant Agreement between the United States Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration and MTA was approved in December 2006.

The $2.63 billion of Federal Grant funding remains unchanged (virtually all of which has already been spent) with the MTA as local sponsor having to cover the $6 billion and growing cost overruns.

Ten years later in August 2016 the US DOT FTA amended MTA LIRR ESA FFGA was signed off by both DOT FTA and the MTA.

After years of negotiations, the MTA and US DOT FTA finally came to an agreement which would reflect the true current cost and schedule.

Both the cost went up and first revenue day of service slipped once again.

Taxpayers may end up paying $12 billion in direct costs for this project.

The odds have increased that riders may have to wait until Dec. 31, 2023 before boarding the first LIRR train to Grand Central Terminal.

The MTA has repeatedly increased the budget by billions and pushed back the first day of service by years.

On numerous occasions the MTA has blamed Amtrak for being responsible for additional delays on the progression of LIRR ESA to Grand Central Terminal project. Insufficient support from Amtrak has been responsible for periodic delays since 2006.

This includes failures to provide both sufficient track outages along with Amtrak Force Account (employee) support.

As a result, both LIRR workers and ESA third party contractors have had problems with timely and adequate access to work sites necessary to progress the project.

This problem will grow even worse in coming years.  Amtrak needs to assign its own limited Force Account staff to work in both the Hudson and East River Tunnels, Penn Station and other competing projects along the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston including the new $24 billion Gateway Tunnel (between New Jersey and Penn Station) rather than support the MTA ESA project.

Just like Amtrak, the LIRR may also have insufficient force account including inadequate numbers of certified signal maintainers and other specialized trade employees to support annual routine state of good repair system wide projects, installation of Positive Train Control, additional work in the East River Tunnels, future proposed $2 billion Main Line Third Track (between Floral Park and Hicksville) along with MTA ESA. How will the LIRR be able to coordinate daily track outages and go slow work zones to support all of this work while at the same time providing the basic service customers for which are entitled?

There is no guarantee that these issues will be resolved any time soon.  This could even result in missing the new December 31, 2023 first day of passenger service.

Since 2001, the total direct cost for MTA LIRR ESA to Grand Central Terminal has grown from $3.5 billion to $4.3 billion in 2003, $6.3 billion in 2006, $8.4 billion in 2012, $10.8 billion in 2014 and easily up $12 billion when finally completed.

Based upon past history, the final cost might go up again over the next six years by a billion or more.

The anticipated opening day for passenger revenue service date has slipped on a number of occasions from 2011 to December 2022 and now December 2023.  Over the next seven years will both this date and budget hold. No one should be surprised, if it ends up in 2024 or later.

The MTA has repeatedly missed every budget and schedule for this project.

They have ended up being worthless paper. No one at the MTA, LIRR or any elected official will acknowledge that the real project cost may be over $15 billion.

This includes other items which are considered indirect and carried off line from the official project budget. These are financing charges ($600 million), additional capacity improvements at Jamaica LIRR station ($450 million), along with numerous capital improvements east of Jamaica.

They include construction of additional parking spots (totaling in the thousands necessary to accommodate all the new riders) at numerous stations, new NYC Transit, MTA Bus, Nassau Inter County Express (NICE), Suffolk County Transit and Huntington Area Rapid Transit (HART) bus feeder services to stations, construction of new stations, completion of the Ronkonkoma branch double tracking between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma ($450 million), Main Line Third Track between Floral Park and Hicksville ($2 billion), new pocket tracks on other branches, new Huntington/Port Jefferson branch storage yard ($400 million), capacity expansion to other storage yards and even more capital projects which will support implementation of ESA. Without all of the above, the LIRR will not be able to achieve 100% utilization of this $12 billion investment including the promise of 24 trains per hour during peak service periods.

When it comes to completion of ESA, the 1960s LIRR motto “Line of the Dashing Dan” in 2017 might have to be changed to “Line of the Slow Moving Sloth.”

Larry Penner

Great Neck

(Larry Penner is a transportation historian and advocate who previously worked 31 years for the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office.)

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