NEC Commission: Show us the money

The Northeast Corridor Commission’s Fiscal Year 2017 Annual Report on Operations and Infrastructure spotlights a capacity-strained passenger rail corridor in need of major investment for state-of-good repair as well as expansion and improvements.

The report, a requirement of the FAST Act, summarizes ridership, train performance and capital investment, including improvements on the NEC, during the past federal fiscal year.

Highlights:

• Delays on the NEC increased in FY17, with NEC trains experiencing around 1.2 million minutes of delay, a 16% increase over FY16. In addition, there was a 92% increase in severe-delay days (where one out of five trains is delayed or terminated). Much of the large increase can be linked to the track failures at New York Penn Station in March and April 2017.The track failures caused Amtrak to launch the Infrastructure Renewal Program at New York Penn Station. This accelerated work program required coordination from Amtrak, NJ Transit, and Long Island Rail Road.
• An increasing number of train delay minutes were engineering-related (infrastructure failure, maintenance outages and speed restrictions), with a 45% jump in FY17 over FY16. The NEC is an aging asset, with dozens of bridges and tunnels that are more than a century old and key parts of the electrical and signal systems dating back to the 1930s. Therefore, it is not surprising that over half of these engineering-related delays (in terms of minutes of delay) are caused by infrastructure failure. Such delays add an urgency to the need to put additional investment into the aging corridor to maintain basic infrastructure and begin to tackle the $38 billion state-of-good-repair backlog to improve reliability and reduce delays for riders.
• NEC stakeholders invested $1.5 billion in corridor infrastructure in FY17, including more than $927 million in special projects and $568 million in capital renewal. Most capital renewal activity was funded by states, transit agencies and Amtrak through an historic commitment to share more than $1 billion in annual operating and capital costs through the Commission’s Cost Allocation Policy, adopted in 2015. That Policy requested the federal government match the increased contributions from the NEC’s user railroads. In the FY18 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress provided $250 million to a Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair program and $650 million for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor account.

Executives at Amtrak, NJ Transit and ConnDOT weighed in on the report:

• Scot Naparstek, Chief Operating Officer, Amtrak: “Amtrak took the problems experienced at Penn Station very seriously. Though our 2017 renewal program replaced critical infrastructure and was delivered successfully, we have only addressed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to state of good repair at Penn Station, much less the entire NEC.”
• Kevin Corbett, Executive Director, NJ Transit. “The track problems at Penn Station last year were devastating to our services and a significant source of stress and inconvenience for our passengers. These incidents highlight the fragility of our aging infrastructure and the urgent need for all parties to pull together and prioritize the modernization of this critical rail infrastructure. Years from now, we may view last year’s incidents as the canary in the coal mine. Given the Northeast Corridor’s importance to our regional and national economy, the time to act is now.”
• Jim Redeker, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Transportation: “We are only just beginning to confront the state-of-good-repair challenges we face. Improving service reliability and ensuring a vibrant future for the most economically productive region in the United States will require many years of increased federal and state investment to replace assets built for us generations ago.”
• Stephen Gardner, Chief Commercial Officer, Amtrak: “The funding committed by states and rail agencies through the Cost Allocation Policy provides a needed level of consistency and dependable funding. We are pleased that Congress chose to provide funding to Amtrak, NEC commuter agencies and the states for improving the Corridor’s aging infrastructure in FY18. We are united in our goal of partnering with the Federal government to improve rail service across the Corridor.”

The complete report can be downloaded HERE from Commission website.

Congress authorized the Northeast Corridor Commission in 2008 “to improve coordination on the NEC.” Comprised of one member from each of the NEC states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland) and the District of Columbia; four members from Amtrak; and five members from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Commission also includes non-voting representatives from NEC freight railroads, states with feeder corridors, and commuter authorities not directly represented by a Commission member.

The NEC, the busiest rail corridor in the U.S., is a 457-mile electrified rail line linking Boston, Providence, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and Washington D.C., serving four of the nation’s ten largest metropolitan areas. The NEC supports more than 770,000 trips daily on eight commuter railroads and more than 40,000 trips on Amtrak’s intercity services. Almost two-thirds of all commuter rail riders in the NEC region rely on the NEC for some or all of their trip. A 2014 study by the Commission found that a loss of all NEC services for a single day could cost the economy $100 million in lost productivity, added congestion on the regional highway and aviation networks, and other transportation-related costs.