MTA considers Metro-North at Penn Station

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering a plan to operate Metro-North Railroad trains into Penn Station, bringing as many as 28,000 more commuters into the nation's busiest train station each weekday and potentially reducing Long Island Rail Road service to and from Manhattan's West Side.

Under its Penn Station Access plan, Metro-North would join the LIRR, Amtrak and NJ Transit in sharing 21 tracks in the transit hub, where there is a combined weekday ridership of 550,000. Metro-North would run trains on its Hudson and New Haven lines into Penn using tracks on Amtrak's Empire Service and Northeast Regional lines.

The LIRR, to make room, could be forced to cut trains it operates from the terminal -- something LIRR officials have said they don't want to do, even after linking to Grand Central Terminal as part of the East Side Access plan. That $7.4-billion project is slated for completion in 2018.

LIRR pushback

The LIRR's supporters, fiercely protective of track assignment and time slots, say regional transportation links cannot come at the LIRR's expense.

"The one thing you don't want to do is turn around and say, 'We can't move goods and people because we've already acquiesced the slot to Metro-North,' " said Desmond Ryan, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island. "It's the old saying: Once it's gone, it's gone forever."

Mark Epstein, LIRR Commuters Council chairman, said, "I don't know if there's really enough track space at Penn Station for all of this. We understand their want, but . . . it's simple math."

SEE PHOTOSLIRR trains and commuters through the years

Advocates for Metro-North, which last year moved ahead of the LIRR to become the nation's busiest commuter railroad, say its riders should be able to get to Manhattan's West Side just as the LIRR's customers deserve passage to the East Side. And, they argue, the LIRR will have extra capacity at Penn Station after many of its riders begin commuting in and out of Grand Central -- an assertion the LIRR's supporters dispute.

Growing support

The Penn Station Access plan, first pitched more than a dozen years ago, is picking up steam with new MTA board members lobbying for the project. Joseph Lhota, who became MTA chairman last month, says he plans to give it a fresh look.

Lhota acknowledged the proposal is "controversial within the MTA, depending on whether you talk to a Metro-North person or a Long Island Rail Road person."

The transportation chief said he recognizes the potential of an interlinked MTA network, though it is too early for him to support or oppose it.

"I think the opportunity to view the MTA as one MTA, and that we'll have a regional system that is all integrated, is very important," he said. "It's a great goal to have. So I'm going to look at it . . . But I'm fully aware of the constraints that I have to deal with. It's my job to get above it, look at it, analyze it, and come to a conclusion of what's the right thing to do."

LIRR president Helena Williams and Metro-North president Howard Permut declined to comment. At a September MTA meeting, Williams said computer simulations have shown it would be "very difficult" to fit more trains into Penn Station.

Penn Station Access supporters, including former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, say the project would create important connections in the regional transportation system at relatively little cost because the tracks already are in place. A 2008 state comptroller's report put the price tag at $1.2 billion -- largely the cost of building new Metro-North stations. Officials had no updated estimate.

Seeking reciprocity

Some proponents of the plan, citing the East Side Access project, recall equal-use assurances they say were made to Metro-North.

"The two things really go hand-in-glove," said Connecticut Rail Commuter Council chairman James Cameron, who has been pushing to put Metro-North into Penn Station. "When the Long Island Rail Road starts to run into Grand Central, we expect -- and we deserve -- access into Penn Station."

James Sedore Jr., co-chairman of the MTA board's commuter railroad committee, said the agency won support for East Side Access from elected officials upstate by persuading them that Metro-North riders stood to benefit.

"That's what was promised to us . . . They would get access to Grand Central and we would get access to Penn Station," Sedore said.

The LIRR operates 37 trains into Penn Station during the busiest 60-minute interval of the morning commute. A 2001 report by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Transit Administration and the MTA states that peak-hour LIRR service into Penn "will remain at . . . the number of trains currently operating to Manhattan's West Side" even after the LIRR begins using Grand Central.

But with 160,000 daily LIRR riders expected to take advantage of service to the East Side, and with a decline in the railroad's overall ridership for three consecutive years, Metro-North advocates say the LIRR should spare some room at Penn.

A 2002 MTA report estimated Metro-North's potential weekday ridership to and from Penn at about 28,000. About 219,000 LIRR customers travel into and out of Penn Station on a typical weekday; Metro-North carries 275,000 riders each weekday from counties north of New York City and from Connecticut.

"There will be less Long Island Rail Road traffic into Penn Station. And if you have less traffic, then you need less track space in Penn Station," said MTA board member Charles Moerdler, of the Bronx.

LIRR officials have said they expect ridership to grow significantly in the next several years. And opponents of the Metro-North plan say that major economic development projects planned on the Island, such as the Ronkonkoma Hub, as well as those on Manhattan's West Side, mean the LIRR will need every one of its existing slots in and out of Penn -- and then some.

But Ferrer said the opportunity to grow the MTA network at minimal cost -- particularly in underserved East Bronx communities -- is too valuable to pass up. Metro-North would build four new stations in the Bronx and two on the West Side under the proposal. "This is one system, one state and one region," Ferrer said. "I think that's what this project is about."

An alternative

There may be a way to satisfy both railroads, but it would take years to accomplish.

Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, plans to expand the terminal's capacity by building two tracks there and two Hudson River tunnels.

In November, Amtrak received $15 million in federal funds to study the "Gateway" project, which could cost $13 billion and take a decade to complete. The LIRR has said the Gateway plan is a way to "increase capacity at Penn Station and promote new service opportunities without diminishing LIRR service."

Jeffrey Zupan, senior transportation fellow for the Regional Plan Association, said although Gateway would be beneficial, the project is too uncertain and too far away to be seen as the answer.

"If you want to wait until 2037 or 2057, then everybody can get what they want," Zupan said. "But there's no reason that in 2018, after spending $8 billion, there shouldn't be improvements for both sectors -- the northern suburbs served by Metro-North and the eastern suburbs served by the LIRR."