Metro-North Railroad would add four stations in New York City's Bronx borough to its New Haven line and provide direct access to Pennsylvania Station under a plan Gov. Andrew Cuomo endorsed in his State of the State speech.
"We will open a new spur for Metro-North," Cuomo said Wednesday in his annual address to lawmakers in Albany, N.Y. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North, is a state agency. The governor appoints its chairman and board members.
The new eastern Bronx stations would be at Hunts Point, Parkchester, Morris Park and Co-op City. All Metro-North trains now run to Grand Central Terminal.
Cuomo officials hope that federal disaster relief aid could cover much of the estimated $1 billion cost, which would include the purchase of new railcars and possibly new track.
"I'm a Bronx guy and it's a good idea and the ridership is there, but the governor seems to ignore the incredible capacity problem at Penn Station," said Peter Derrick, a retired MTA executive and a visiting scholar at New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy.
"Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and MTA have been looking at ways to get more capacity. One really good thing about the governor's proposal is that he's looking seriously, so everyone else will look at it seriously, too. Political pressure from outside could force LIRR to free up some capacity."
The irony, said Derrick, is that "Metro-North for many years kept Long Island Rail Road out of Grand Central, and now it wants to move into Penn Station."
The East Side access project is under way to provide Grand Central access to LIRR trains.
The MTA, with about $32 billion of debt outstanding, is one of the largest issuers in the municipal marketplace. Moody's Investors Service assigns an A2 credit to its primary credit, transportation revenue bonds, while Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's rate them A.
Wednesday's speech came one day after Cuomo, joined by Vice President Joseph Biden, announced a $17 billion strategy to protect infrastructure from extreme weather such as Hurricane Sandy. Much of the MTA's critical infrastructure is built underground and is vulnerable to seawater.
The South Ferry subway station, which sits below the water table, serves riders on the No. 1 line and connects to the Staten Island ferry terminal, sustained the most storm damage in the system, less than four years after the authority spent $600 million on a remodeling.
Even the Penn Station initiative has a resiliency angle, providing alternative access to Manhattan should anything happen at Grand Central. According to Cuomo, Penn Station access would be a hedge against failures on the Harlem River Lift Bridge and Mott Haven Junction. Access to Manhattan now hinges on both remaining fully operational; two years ago, a fire nearly destroyed the lift bridge.
"The project will further support the economic growth of the Hunts Point market and the large medical centers of the Bronx and Westchester and provide opportunities for the innovative financing of station construction and surrounding real estate development," said Cuomo.
Last week the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market agreed on a seven-year lease renewal that will keep the market in the Bronx until June 2021.
