MTA blames Amtrak for delays to $2.9 billion project linking Metro-North to Penn Station

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority won’t be able to get back the eight months it’s already fallen behind on its next multi-billion dollar railroad megaproject, and barring major changes, further delays could be on the way, according to MTA officials.

News of the latest setback on the Penn Station Access project came at a Monday meeting of the MTA’s capital construction committee, where officials revealed that efforts to recoup lost time have been unsuccessful. Initially expected to be finished by March 2027, the $2.9 billion plan to link Metro-North to Penn Station now won’t be completed any earlier than November 2027, officials said.

MTA officials are blaming the delays on Amtrak, which they say has not made good on promises to provide employees needed to carry out work on a critical six-mile stretch of track in the Bronx known as the Hell Gate line.

When the MTA first announced in January that the project was facing delays because of staffing issues, Amtrak offered to take the line out of service around-the-clock for six months so that the work could be expedited, and the lost time could be recovered. But, project director Tom McGuinness said Monday that insufficient cooperation from Amtrak remains a problem.

“While we have been able to complete some key activities under this outage, Amtrak has been unable to provide the agreed-upon level of . . . staffing to take full advantage of the 24/7 outage,” McGuinness said. “As a result, we do not expect to complete all planned work during this period, and have not been able to recover previously lost time.”

Responding to the MTA, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams noted that it is the MTA that “manages the construction and the schedule.”

“We provide support in the field, in design and in track access,” Abrams said. “This is an important project for us . . . We want to complete it as soon as possible, albeit safely and within budget, as well.”

Some MTA board members expressed frustration with Amtrak over the delays, including Haeda Mihaltses, who said, "It just boggles the mind that we can't hold Amtrak accountable."

Under an agreement with the MTA, Amtrak is on the hook for up to $50 million in damages incurred because of the delays, but MTA officials noted that the potential cost of mounting delays could exceed that.

MTA chairman Janno Lieber said he understood Amtrak’s resource limitations, and has urged federal regulators to assist in the problem by providing funding for Amtrak to hire more workers, and by granting changes to work rules that would allow MTA employees to do some of the work usually done by Amtrak employees. He has also suggested that Amtrak borrow workers from other states to assist in the effort.

Lieber called the problem an “existential threat” to the improvement of rail travel in the Northeast, and noted that a similar lack of cooperation from Amtrak contributed to major delays and an extra $1 billion in cost to the MTA’s East Side Access megaproject, which linked the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal. That project, completed earlier this year, was originally expected to be finished by 2009.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.