Citing a "crisis" and New York's Penn Station, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote President Trump on May 21, asking that the President recognize the situation as an emergency and therefore provide funds to fix the problem. Cuomo wrote, "I request that the federal government treat this as an emergency situation and provide funding for the short-term Penn construction and transportation alternatives and facilitation of a long-term resolution for Penn Station." Cuomo cited the large number of users of Penn Station, noting that more than half of them are New Yorkers using the Long Island Rail Road, the "deplorable condition" of what he called "the state of disrepair," and the projected impact of "emergency" repairs now scheduled by Amtrak. He lamented that "only now" has Amtrak announced the severity of service cuts that will be necessary to undertake the repairs, scheduled for two intervals in July and August, and likely to continue again in 2018. Cuomo said he foresees a "summer of agony." The letter went on to question Amtrak's ability to manage and operate the station, and expressed Cuomo's support for extensive investment in a new, improved station complex, which Cuomo said could be part of what President Trump has proposed as a one-trillion-dollar nationwide infrastructure improvement program.

The letter from Gov. Cuomo can be read here.

Blocked passageway at Hoboken, now reopened

Since an inbound NJ Transit train crashed through the bumper block on Track 5 at the railroad's Hoboken terminal on September 29, 2016, a critical pedestrian passage has been closed.  The passageway has now reopened, eliminating a detour that most riders had to endure: a circular trip through the terminal's main waiting room and then through a narrow door that leads to exits to the street, the adjacent bus terminal, and most importantly, to the PATH rapid transit system. NJT had previously announced that the passageway would not reopen until June. The detour route often became clogged in peak hours, even dangerously so when passenger loads swelled during recent incidents when trains were diverted to Hoboken from New York's Penn Station. Now passengers from the bulk of the station's tracks can walk directly to the exits, using the walkway at the end of the tracks rather than the detour.

The accident, which killed a bystander in the station and injured a number of riders on the train, caused extensive damage to the historic terminal's structure. Full repairs wil not be completed for several years, owing to the complexity of repairing the architecturally significant parts of the damaged train shed and terminal building.

Regular users of New York's embattled Penn Station don't need to be told about their daily travails. They might appreciate, but don't need, a behind-the-scenes tour to confirm what they already know. (If you haven't already had a guided behind-the-scenes tour of the station and the decaying Hudson River tunnels, well, you probably aren't a politician.) The latest beneficiaries learning what users already know are a group of New Jersey politicians, who got the royal treatment on Friday, May 12, according to reporting by Larry Higgs (contributions by Jonathan D. Salant and the Associated Press) for NJ Advance Media (and printed in the Star-Ledger, May 13.)  Their tour included riding in a special rail inspection car -- seats guaranteed -- equipped with floodlights to enable guests to observe conditions in the under-the-river tunnels, which were flooded in Hurricane Sandy more than four years ago.

"I call it frightening"

said State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex). "In a regular passenger train you can't see what's surrounding you."  Duh.

"It's amazing that they actually get trains in and out"

said State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen," who went on to propose what she said was a solution: "What's important is Amtrak, NJ Transit, and the Long Island Rail Road come up with a schedule so riders know the dates and times when outages will take place." Presumably, Sen. Weinberg was referring to the planned reduction in service to be caused by Amtrak work beginning July 7, not outages resulting from unpredictable events such as train derailments, flooding, and the like.

"It's not pretty, it's chaotic and disorientating,"

said Sen. Joy Kyrillos (R-Monmouth). "When you get off a train, you don't know where you are." Well, regular riders figure it out, after a few hundred trips at least.

"Frankly, it's ugly and vulnerable, particularly the tunnels,"

said Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Bergen), who said "we saw it through the eyes of a commuter."

With service disruptions at New York's Penn Station occurring on an almost-daily basis, criticism of station owner Amtrak's operation of the facility has been mounting.  In response, according to reporting by Patrick McGeehan in the New York Times (May 12), Amtrak President Wick Moorman on May 11 proposed that a private company take over Amtrak's management of its portion of the station concourses, and that he hoped that NJT and LIRR would do the same.  Seemingly, Moorman did not mention operation of the vital tracks and platforms beneath the concourses. Moorman said a model for his proposal was airport operation, in which a common operator serves multiple airlines.  This wasn't enough for the governors of New York and New Jersey, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, who countered in a joint letter the same day, saying that Amtrak should turn over operation of the entire station to a private operator. They wrote, "A professional, qualified, private station operator must be brought in to take over the repairs and manage this entire process going forward. We must have the right to approve any private contractor that Amtrak selects in response to our request and the record of failure causing these problems at Penn Station."

Up to 25% of NJ Transit's 63 peak  hour trains would have to be cancelled or rerouted from New York's Penn Station when Amtrak's first midweek infrastructure work period begins on July 7, according to statements by Amtrak President Wick Moorman, and reported widely in media, including by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media. The work period is scheduled to run from July 7 to 25, with a second interval from August 4-28; additional work periods are being planned for 2018. Moorman said that the 25% estimate is an upper estimate, but that up to five platform tracks at the station might have to be closed.

Amtrak said all the station's railroads would issue revised schedules by the end of the week of May 15. For its part, Amtrak said it would reduce its usage of Penn Station, partly by terminating some trains in Newark, N.J. During some of the recent service interruptions, Amtrak terminated its Keystone Service trains to and from Harrisburg at Newark.

A familiar way for NJ Transit to deal with traffic problems at Penn Station is to reroute Midtown Direct trains (those serving the Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines from New York) to Hoboken. If Moorman's numbers are taken literally, up to 16 NJT trains would have to be cancelled or rerouted. But depending on how "peak hours" are calculated, simply rerouting these Midtown Direct trains may be sufficient to satisfy Moorman's worst-case scenario. NJT has promised full description of how they will cope with Amtrak's work plans, saying "Once a service plan is finalized, an extensive communications outreach will be announced to allow our customers sufficient time to react and plan their commute accordingly as Amtrak upgrades its infrastructure in the upcoming months. "

Transit problems have become a topic for most of the candidates hoping to succeed NJ Gov. Christie, whose term expires next January; Christie is term-limited and cannot run again. Nick Corasanti reported the story in the New York Times (May 9). The leading Democratic candidate, Philip D. Murphy, acknowledged that New Jersey has a transportation crisis, and that a new tax "potentially" might be the only solution, although he stressed that there are many options on the table. Voters seem to be in tune with the idea that something must be done; a recent Quinnipiac University poll said that 84% of likely voters favored a new trans-Hudson rail tunnel; 65% disapproved of Gov. Christie's handling of transportation issue. Christie famously stopped an earlier Hudson tunnel project, citing costs and features; since then, there has been little progress on new tunnels, and Christie has also cut NJ Transit's state subsidy by 90%.

Most of the Democratic and Republican candidates agree that Amtrak's Gateway project, which includes new tunnels, are "vital;" and that overhauls of both New York's Penn Station and Port Authority Bus Terminal are necessary.  Candidates also seem to agree that an audit of NJ Transit to identify waste and mismanagement would be a good idea, and that political appointments to transit agencies should cease. Gov. Christie's Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadagno, who is running for the Republican nomination, called the political appointment process "the worst public policy to come out of Trenton in a generation."

On specifics, the candidates have a variety of proposals. Mr. Murphy called for indefinite cross-honoring of NJT tickets on PATH and ferries, a manager to oversee relations with other transit agencies, and better apps to inform riders of delays.  He also said a dedicated funding source for NJT is needed, but that there were also other ways to guarantee NJT funding.

The increase in the gasoline tax last year allowed many transportation projects to resume, but Ms. Guadagno opposed it, saying that it's important to examine spending in Trenton, and bring all agencies responsible for infrastructure under common management.  Her Republican rival, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, also wants agency reorganization, a new tax agreement with New York State, and called for using the moneys collected from drivers' licenses and other fees to improve infrastructure. The fees currently go into the state's general fund.  Democratic candidate Jim Johnson, for his part, unveiled a transit and infrastructure plan in late April, triggered by a number of transit snafus. He wants to cut fraud and waste, data-sharing among transportation agencies, tax reform, "predictive" instead of deferred maintenance, and completion of a proposed rail line between Glassboro and Camden.

Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski, with long experience in transportation issues, called for changes in the state's Transportation Trust Fund, additional rail capacity including the so-called Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex proposed line, train station renovation, and refocusing the Port Authority on interstate transportation (instead of airports).

All of the candidates seem interested in transit issues, but their personal experience with public transit varies. Mr. Murphy declined to say when he has used transit; Ms. Guadagno commuted by NJT from Little Silver to Newark in her former job as a federal prosecutor; Mr. Johnson uses the PATH to travel to New York.  Mr. Wisniewski reported that he used to take the train from South Amboy to Newark and says rail is his favorite means of travel to New York, although he says these days he's wary of rail's reliability: for a recent meeting, he said, "I couldn't afford to be late. I had to drive in."

According to the union representing NJ Transit's conductors, more than 240,000 fares went uncollected on NJ Transit's trains last year, apparently due to crowded trains and lack of staffing. According to a letter the union sent to NJT, the uncollected fares might represent $5.5 million in lost revenue. The story was first reported by the New York Times (by Emma. G. Fitzsimmons, and printed May 8), and quickly picked up by other media. The Times story also reported that NJT will have to pay about $1 million in fees to other transit operators for "cross-honoring" arrangements in which NJT riders can use non-NJT services in emergency conditions; the relationship of this to lost ticket revenues was unclear. The data were from forms filled out by the train crews, reporting uncollected fares. While many riders may not have had their tickets inspected, the worst crowding typically occurs in peak hours, when most riders use weekly or monthly passes; not checking such riders does not incur any loss in revenue.  In addition, an increasing fraction of single-trip riders now purchase and activate tickets on their smartphones; these "e-tickets," as well, don't need to be inspected as they are already paid for.

In many transit systems, onboard ticket inspection is not regularly performed; in those systems, tickets are not sold on board trains or buses, and only random inspections are done: riders caught without valid tickets typically incur heavy fines. Such systems are already familiar to users of NJT's light rail lines, and on the "Select Bus Service" lines in New York City. If NJT's rail lines were to be converted to this "proof-of-payment" system, any losses might well be reduced.  But this  might also require fewer onboard workers, which might not be something the train conductors' union would welcome.

New York's Penn Station continues to handle record customer loads; under normal conditions, the flow of people to and from trains can be intimidating.  But when something goes wrong, the situation can rapidly escalate into a crowd crush that can become paralyzing, and even dangerous. In recent incidents, problems have been caused by track closures, delayed trains, or cancellations, all of which cause people to pack the station's concourses as they wait for their train to be announced.  Such a situation developed on Wednesday, May 3, according to reporting by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media,in the evening rush hours, about 5:30 p.m. In this case, the culprit was a single escalator that became unavailable, in this case, the main escalator leading from the platform for tracks 9 and 10, descending from NJT's main 7th Avenue concourse departure level, a depressed area known colloquially as "the pit." The only alternative is a second stairway located in an obscure corner of the concourse, one used mainly by knowledgeable commuters when the main access escalator is jammed with riders headed for a just-announced train.  Now everybody had to use the corner stairway, which is narrow and has tight turns. And enroute they collided with crowds standing in the concourse staring at departure screens, waiting for their own trains.  The stairway is narrow enough to require a single file of users, and by the time some of them navigated the obstacle course, their train was already on the move.

On April 14, riders panicked when false rumors spread that shots had been fired (see story below). We're not sure what the answer is, but how long will it be before there is a crowd disaster at New York Penn?

After several infrastructure failures in New York's Penn Station, Amtrak continues to define its plans to accelerate previously-deferred maintenance in the station complex it operates. While maintenance work has traditionally been conducted during low-traffic periods on weekends and weekdays overnight, Amtrak now says to do a proper job quickly it will have to shut down some tracks even during peak commuter hours. Several news sources said they had obtained copies of Amtrak's plan, which would shut down what is usually reported as two tracks -- presumably station platform tracks -- for 44 total days this summer. Under the current plans, the shutdowns would occur between July 7 and 25, and August 4 and 28. The plan was reported by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media (and printed in the Star-Ledger on May 3) and Patrick McGeehan for the New York Times (also May 3). The impact of the track shutdowns was not immediately clear, with riders fearing a "commuter hell" and NJ Transit Executive Director Steven Santoro declaring that shutdowns comparable to a recent incident that forced emergency shutdown of 8 of the station's 21 tracks as "not acceptable." New Jersey politicians questioned the timing of the planned work, questioning why Amtrak didn't choose to start the work over the July 4 holiday weekend, and finish it up the last week in August, when, they said, many people are on vacation. All of the railroads using the station planned to meet to determine how best to cope with the work program and to minimize impact on their customers.

Specific plans seem to be leaking out, and some were reported by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media. In the July work, Higgs reported, station tracks 12 and 13 would be out of service for ten days. His report also contains the alarming information that "one of the two Hudson River tunnels would be dedicated to moving construction and demolition material into and out of the worksite between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.;" this seems unlikely if put in effect on commuting days, for it would paralyze the peak-hour traffic flow. (We wonder if the hours are reversed; perhaps the one tunnel track would be used for construction only at night? -- Ed.) According to this report, the same tracks, 12 and 13, would be taken out of service for 13 days in August as well. Work on tracks 9 and 10 would also be conducted. The specific work includes "replacing a complete scissor track crossing, signals and the concrete track bed that supports the rails."

Meanwhile, repairs continue on the overnight and weekend basis, and NJ Transit continues to warn of delays at all times. The NJT weekend schedule has for years been structured so that one of the two Hudson River "tubes" can be taken out of service all weekend, resulting in limitations on scheduling that have become so routine that few question them any longer.

NJ Transit customers are being told to expect delays to service in and out of New York's Penn Station indefinitely; as a minimum, trains might be delayed 15 minutes on weekdays and 30 minutes on weekends. The predicted delays are to allow Amtrak to make repairs to tracks leading to the station; defects and deferred maintenance in the tracks have been blamed for several recent incidents in which trains derailed. And it may get worse, according to reporting by Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Patric McGeehan for the New York Times (April 26): Amtrak says it's time to "bite the bullet" and take tracks out of service for days or weeks to fix the underlying problems. The story is also reported by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media and appears in the Star-Ledger (April 26).  What this would mean for commuters is still unclear; details would have to be worked out between Amtrak and NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, the other "tenant" at the busy station. But any reduction in track capacity has usually resulted in train cancellations and, for NJ Transit, usually diversion of Midtown Direct service to NJT's Hoboken terminal, itself still under repair after a train crashed in September.

On April 27, Amtrak started to flesh out its repair plans for a "series of major track and switch renewal projects," which might require taking up to four station tracks out of service at a time. The story was reported by multiple sources, including in the New York Times (April 28)by Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Patrick McGeehan, and by Larry Higgs for NJ Advance Media (and published in the Star-Leger on April 28), as well as by the Gannett papers. Amtrak said the repairs, costing tens of millions of dollars, would come by reducing "funds earmarked for technological upgrades," raising fears that Amtrak might be fixing one set of problems and making others worse. And Amtrak made it clear that some of the repair work would have to be done on weekdays, impacting the ability of trains to use the station, particularly in peak commuting hours. Amtrak pledged to coordinate its plans with the major users of the station, NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road.

While Amtrak inspects its track and identifies candidates for repair, it has reduced the train speed limit within the station area to 10 mph, down from the usual 15 mph. This has contributed to delays experienced by riders.

And these delays are due to what can be predicted, not to unusual events, which are becoming almost constant. Tuesday, April 25 brought delays in the morning and evening rush hours -- from separate events.  A stuck Amtrak train caused delays in the morning; in the evening, Amtrak power problems between Penn Station and Queens caused serious problems for both NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, with thousands of riders clogging the station. A visit by this reporter at about 6 pm found only one NJT train boarding, and all others posted as "Delayed." Crowding in the NJT concourses was intense, and the escalators to and from the Long Island Rail Road levels were jammed; one report said that LIRR had to restrict access to its part of the station to control the crowds. By late evening things were back to more or less normal. On April 27, operations seemed more or less normal, at least for NJ Transit; this reporter rode an NJT train from Montclair due in New York Penn about nine a.m.; while the train moved slowly through the tunnels and was halted for a few minutes, it was only a few minutes late in arrival, nothing like the 15 minutes NJT said riders could expect.