Mayor Adams joined the rising refrain of elected leaders Tuesday calling on Amtrak to halt it’s plans to shut 1 / 4 of the East River Tunnel’s rail tubes for repairs — a challenge Democrats and Republicans alike fear will wreak havoc on the Lengthy Island Rail Highway.
In a letter to President Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, Adams known as on the feds to “direct Amrtrak to stand down” and undertake a piece plan that might preserve the tunnel open through the workday.
The East River Tunnel, owned by Amtrak and first opened in 1910, consists of 4 tubes linking Manhattan and Queens. Two of the tubes primarily serve the Lengthy Island Railroad, permitting its service to Penn Station. The opposite two tubes are utilized by Amtrak for service on the Northeast Hall and NJ Transit for storage of commuter trains in Queens’ Sunnyside Yard.
The 2 non-LIRR tubes had been broken throughout Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and corrosion from salt water has result in sign and energy issues. Amtrak’s plan has been to close down the broken tubes, one by one, for a 13 months every, beginning on Friday.
Mayor Eric Adams. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Day by day Information)
The federal railroad plans a full renovation of the tubes — gutting them and changing the wiring, tracks, bench-walls and different buildings.
However the brass at LIRR — the tunnel’s major consumer — say that can overload the remaining three tunnels to the extent that there will likely be no room for error within the railroad’s schedule.
“The slightest deviation could have significant impacts to our operations reliability, including possible shutdowns of service depending on the issue,” LIRR president Rob Free instructed the MTA’s board final week.
Throughout the outage, the 461 LIRR trains that use the tunnel every day would wish to compete for slots in jsut three tubes with Amtrak passenger trains headed to and from Boston by way of the Hell Gate line, in addition to out-of-service NJ Transit trains that proceed on from Penn Station every morning in an effort to wait in Queens on the Sunnyside Yards for the afternoon rush.
The MTA has requested that Amtrak go for a technique that might shut a tube on nights and weekends solely, changing wiring elements and leaving structural parts just like the concrete bench-walls in place.
The MTA begrudgingly adopted an analogous answer in 2019, averting a deliberate 15-month shutdown of the L prepare’s Canarsie line tunnel — which had additionally been flooded by Sandy.
However in an open letter final week, Amtrak president Roger Harris stated the 2 tasks had little in frequent.
“The differences between the Canarsie Tunnel and the East River Tunnels are substantial,” the Amtrak boss wrote.
“The 12,000-volt AC cables that power trains in the East River Tunnel are encased in concrete bench walls to ensure safety and fire protection, unlike the 600-volt DC cables in the Canarsie Tunnel, which were relocated to wall-mounted racks. Amtrak evaluated the same … approach but found it could not meet required fire ratings or egress space standards.”
In his Monday letter, the Mayor pushed again on Amtrak’s assertion, citing a 2020 report by unbiased specialists at London Bridge Associates — who studied comparable repairs required on the East River Tunnel’s sister construction, the North River Tunnel between New Jersey and Penn Station.
“[L]eading engineering experts, including London Bridge Associates, have affirmed the viability of an incremental approach that allows the fourth tunnel to remain open during the day, including all rush hour periods, while repairs are done at night and on weekends, thereby avoiding any potential problems,” Adams wrote.
Because the plan at the moment stands, the East River Tunnel’s Tube No. 1 is about to be taken out of service on Friday for every week of prep work. The tube will then be put again into service whereas Tube No. 2 is closed for comparable work.
Inside weeks, based on Amtrak’s plan, Tube No. 2 will likely be closed for main building set to final till 2026.
Initially Printed: Could 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM EDT
