Northeast Corridor Commission FY16 Annual Report and FY18-22 Capitol I

[CraigDK]

The Northeast Corridor Commission released it Annual Report for 2016 and its Capital Investment Plan for 2018 to 2022 yesterday.

The FY2016 Report can be found here.

The FY2018 to FY2022 Capital Investment Plan can be found here.

I have only done a preliminary look through them, so I won't offer commentary on them now. I know the $38 Billion dollar number has been mentioned in at least one other thread, but I figured this deserved its own discussion.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

The Northeast Corridor Commission released it Annual Report for 2016 and its Capital Investment Plan for 2018 to 2022 yesterday.

The FY2016 Report can be found here.

The FY2018 to FY2022 Capital Investment Plan can be found here.

I have only done a preliminary look through them, so I won't offer commentary on them now...

Interesting stuff that I, too, have not finished reading. That's partly because I got myself distracted after I googled up a report on the Harold Interlocking. With the new Walk Bridge (that Connecticut will be paying for), Harold is one of the biggest projects on the NEC that has funding lined up.

http://web.mta.info/capital/esa_docs/East%20Side%20Access-%20Quarterly%20Report%202016%20Q3.pdf#page=77

The Stimulus gave New York about $300 million to work with. Almost $100 million more comes from the Metropolitan Transit Authority's budget as part of the LIRR's East Side Access. The Harold Interlocking project is to upgrade the Amtrak route so trains coming from Penn Station can exit the tunnel under the East River, pass thru the already congested Sunnyside Yard, and go on to cross the Hellgate Bridge and head to Boston. (And it will get the Amtrak trains out of the way of the LIRR trains that will use the East Side Access to reach Grand Central Terminal.)

When the grant was announced, politicians claimed that the upgrades would save about 3 minutes from the schedules. Need I point out that taking 3 minutes, or even 2 minutes, from the timetables for the Acelas and Regionals to Boston, as well as the Regionals to Springfield and even the Vermonter, should be huge. But it won't be soon.

That Quarterly report indicates that the East Side Access project's current goal, after innumerable delays, is a Public Revenue Service date of December 2022, with a hope that if things go well, revenue service could begin in 2021.

The report does not break out a separate revenue service date for Amtrak's portion of the combined Harold Interlocking/East Side Access project. There could be an earlier date for Amtrak's part alone, but I didn't find it reading late last night.

So are we looking at a Stimulus-funded project to be completed 4 or 5 years after the September 30, 2017, deadline for such spending? Well, there's no way the bi-level coach order from Nippon-Sharyo can make the deadline either. Will the money revert to the Treasury? Or will friendly politicians make a deadline waiver here and there? What a mess!

 

[CraigDK]

The Northeast Corridor Commission released it Annual Report for 2016 and its Capital Investment Plan for 2018 to 2022 yesterday.

The FY2016 Report can be found here.

The FY2018 to FY2022 Capital Investment Plan can be found here.

I have only done a preliminary look through them, so I won't offer commentary on them now...

Harold is one of the biggest projects on the NEC that has funding lined up.

http://web.mta.info/capital/esa_docs/East%20Side%20Access-%20Quarterly%20Report%202016%20Q3.pdf#page=77

The Stimulus gave New York about $300 million to work with. Almost $100 million more comes from the Metropolitan Transit Authority's budget as part of the LIRR's East Side Access. The Harold Interlocking project is to upgrade the Amtrak route so trains coming from Penn Station can exit the tunnel under the East River, pass thru the already congested Sunnyside Yard, and go on to cross the Hellgate Bridge and head to Boston. (And it will get the Amtrak trains out of the way of the LIRR trains that will use the East Side Access to reach Grand Central Terminal.)

When the grant was announced, politicians claimed that the upgrades would save about 3 minutes from the schedules. Need I point out that taking 3 minutes, or even 2 minutes, from the timetables for the Acelas and Regionals to Boston, as well as the Regionals to Springfield and even the Vermonter, should be huge. But it won't be soon.

That Quarterly report indicates that the East Side Access project's current goal, after innumerable delays, is a Public Revenue Service date of December 2022, with a hope that if things go well, revenue service could begin in 2021.

The report does not break out a separate revenue service date for Amtrak's portion of the combined Harold Interlocking/East Side Access project. There could be an earlier date for Amtrak's part alone, but I didn't find it reading late last night.

So are we looking at a Stimulus-funded project to be completed 4 or 5 years after the September 30, 2017, deadline for such spending?

I may be reading that ESA report wrong but it looks like less than 10% of the funding comes from the HSIPR/ARRA grant. On page 75 it mentions accelerating the drawn down of those grant funds, so I would assume the plan is to use whatever is left of that funding before using unspent funding from other sources. It maybe possible that the 4th quarter report shows just that (whenever it is available).

 

[CraigDK]

The Capital funding report appears to show the following projects where funded as part of the RRIF loan that includes the new Alstom trainsets.

Baltimore Penn Station Infrastructure Improvements - $43.0M

Maryland Section Reliability Improvements - $38.8M

Ivy City/Washington Terminal Yard Facility Improvements - $95.6M

Ride Quality Investment - $67.0M

Safety Mitigation - $90.0M

Southhampton St Yard Facility Improvements - $4.5M

Sunnyside Yard Facility Improvements - $339.9M

WUS Claytor Concourse Modernization - $65.0M