Nearly three months to the day since Hurricane Irene washed out a significant stretch of trackbed along the Port Jervis line, Metro-North will restore full service to the west-of-Hudson commuter rail, the MTA announced yesterday. Full service on the Port Jervis line is set to resume on November 28, a month sooner than anticipated.
“Since Irene, Metro-North’s top priority has been the restoration of train service on the Port Jervis Line and thanks to the tireless work of the railroad’s own employees, we are very pleased to announce that full, through train service will be restored a month earlier than expected,” Metro-North President Howard Permut said. “We invite our customers to come back to Metro-North and thank them for their patience during this crisis.”
On November 28, the MTA will restore the schedule of 26 daily trains and 14 weekend trains. The alternate bus service will cease then as well. Metro-North officials credited the expedited repairs process to the declaration of emergency issued by then-Chairman and CEO Jay Walder as well as increased cooperation from landowners and municipalities along the washed-out right-of-way. Although the MTA will continue to work throughout the winter and into the spring to repair the line, the authority now projects a completion date in June 2012, and the work will cost between $30-$40 million, significantly less than the original $60 million estimate.
9 comments
impressive, particularly considering the damage
Damn. I wish the Second Ave. Subway had been washed away in Irene, too – then maybe they could’ve suspended all the usual bureaucracy and actually built the damn thing!
It only shows you, when any of those huge public organizations actually WANTS to accomplish something quickly, they DO it.
Just like the clearing of the World Trade Center rubble, ten years ago at this time of year. Wasn’t THAT job finished in a lot less time than originally predicted? Meanwhile, we were recenty told that BOTH the Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway and the East Side Access project will probably not be finished until 2018 instead of 2016.
Not that you don’t have valid points, but comparing two miles of washed-out track bed in the region’s version of the middle of nowhere to SAS or ESA isn’t even apples to oranges. It’s apples to puppy dogs.
Isn’t it ten miles rather than two?
And the point (assuming it’s ten) is not that the cost should be the same. It’s that when the usual bureaucracy is suspended, the cost multiplier over Europe goes down dramatically.
That’s right! I was talking about the RATE of the work that is being done. I’m not pretending that SAS or ESA could be finished in the same absolute length of time as the Port Jervis job.
Cynic me says MTA may have known the project could probably be done faster and cheaper than they originally advertised but stuck with that estimate so they could score (a rare) bit of good press when they came in ahead of schedule and under budget. I dont blame them for doing this as the organization can use any positive press it can get.
It can happen, yes. SNCF slightly lowballs TGV ridership estimates, though not by so much that new lines appear cost-ineffective, so that each time a new line opens it can say ridership has exceeded projections.
All i can say is this is great! No more having to drive 45 minutes to Beacon/Hudson line to get to work at a reasonable time. Just one more month!