After one stampede, two derailments and countless "signal problems," the governors of New York and New Jersey called on Amtrak Thursday to find a private company to operate Penn Station and manage its backlog of repairs.
In a letter to Amtrak Chief Executive Charles Moorman IV, Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie blamed the recent problems on "decades of underinvestment by Amtrak" and said "systemic problems could not wait."
Complaints about Penn Station's low ceilings and confusing passageways date back to the 1960s, when the original Beaux-Arts shed was torn down and the station submerged beneath a sports arena. Plans to restore dignity to the station have sputtered along since the 1990s.
But in 2014, concerns of a much more pragmatic level surfaced: Amtrak said chemical deposits left behind by Sandy were slowly eating away at the Hudson River tunnels, electrical equipment and train tracks themselves. This spring, one derailment was quickly followed by another, a stampede revealed serious security shortcomings, and Amtrak finally embarked on emergency repairs that have been causing regular delays of up to 30 minutes on NJ Transit trains. On Thursday, the federal railroad corporation confirmed it would need to reduce the number of available tracks by 25 percent for a total of 44 days this summer.
"A professional, qualified, private station operator must be brought in to take over the repairs and manage this entire process moving forward," the governors wrote in their letter.
The station is owned by Amtrak but used much more intensively by the Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit. The governors said together their states pay about $150 million a year for the upkeep of Penn Station,
An Amtrak spokesman has not responded to a request for comment.
A New York state senator from Long Island, Todd Kaminsky welcomed the idea or hiring a private operator.
"I have been very disappointed and am really glad Gov. Cuomo called for their removal," Kaminsky, a Democrat like Cuomo, said.
--Additional reporting by Sean Carlson.