A sharp disagreement over the causes of delays in the Penn Station access project intensified Nov. 12, as Amtrak issued a formal response letter rejecting claims by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that the railroad is primarily responsible for a three-year slide in Metro-North’s $2.9 billion expansion at New York’s Penn Station.
The letter responds to an Oct. 27 notice from MTA Construction and Development President Jamie Torres-Springer, who told the agency’s capital program committee that the project, now about 39 percent complete, is expected to be substantially completed in the second quarter of 2030 compared to the original March 2027 target.
He attributed that delay “predominantly” to Amtrak, citing missed outage windows and inadequate staffing of force accounts on Metro North’s Hell Gate Line. ENR reported those claims on Oct. 28, including the MTA’s warning that delay damages may exceed the $50 million cap in the ridesharing agreement.
Amtrak: ‘Exceeded Access and Staffing Obligations’
In the Nov. 12 letter and in a Nov. 4 interview with ENR, Amtrak executive vice president for capital delivery Laura Mason acknowledges early access and staffing challenges in 2022-23, but says the railroad has “more than met” its obligations under the 2021 design-build phase agreement.
“We struggled for the first year, year and a half … and we own it,” he said. “But since then and starting in 2024, we have been fulfilling our contractual commitments by force and meeting or exceeding track access.”
According to Amtrak, the railroad has granted two long-term outages, totaling 127 days and still ongoing, beyond the weekend closures called for in the project’s outage guidelines, providing the Halmar International/RailWorks joint venture with “more productivity and additional durations” than weekend work allows. Amtrak says it now “consistently exceeds” required staffing levels.
Mason argues that those efforts have been overshadowed by delays that the MTA failed to highlight publicly. It cites repeated contractor design and installation deficiencies, safety incidents, early delays related to CSX freight operations and a seven-month slide caused by the MTA’s eastbound reorientation project.
The combination, he said, creates overlapping delays that cannot reasonably be attributed to Amtrak alone.
MTA says, Amtrak says
The MTA’s Oct. 27 committee materials maintain the project’s $2.867 billion budget, but say the baseline is “at risk” until both agencies agree on a new baseline. They outline a plan to begin limited Metro-North service to the new East Bronx stations in 2027, if Amtrak agrees to more aggressive disruption patterns, while full four-track operations move to 2030.
Laura Mason, Amtrak’s executive vice president for capital delivery, says the railroad has overcome staffing commitments and disruption to the Penn Station access project and disputes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s claims that Amtrak is responsible for the project’s three-year delay.
Photo courtesy of Amtrak
The materials explain the missed weekend outages and absent Amtrak crews in the initial phase of the project and claim that “decisive action” by Amtrak is needed to restore the integrity of the schedule.
The MTA, in a statement to ENR, said it stands by those ratings.
“New Yorkers want Amtrak to be held accountable for its shortcomings. We are pleased that they are working with us to bring Metro-North service to residents of the East Bronx by 2027,” said MTA President of Construction and Development Jamie Torres-Springer. “Bronchites have waited too long as Amtrak trains roared through their neighborhoods without stopping, and it must end in 2027. LIRR will not reduce service to Penn because of Amtrak’s shortcomings.”
“At the same time,” he added, “we are disappointed that Amtrak has not agreed to a single one of the requests we made to bring the project back to life in its response.”
The agency also noted that its October 2025 Capital Program Committee report included findings from an independent evaluator. “Amtrak acknowledged the major factors delaying its response,” the MTA said, “including very limited disruptions, a lack of support staff and inconsistent rules governing how the work is done.”
Political pressure followed. On October 30, US Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY), joined by other Democrats from New York and Connecticut, sent a letter to Amtrak Chairman Roger Harris calling Penn Station Access “a critical transportation project for the entire New York region” and asking for cooperation to preserve the service’s 2027 launch.
The group requested a response by Nov. 12, the deadline that triggered Amtrak’s letter. Amtrak’s Oct. 28 public statement also sought to frame the project as a shared responsibility, noting more than $140 million in investments and “significant personnel resources.”
In its response, Amtrak says the MTA has not provided key documentation related to the claims filed by the Halmar-RailWorks joint venture, including executed contract modifications, schedule files and payment requests.
Amtrak writes that both agencies had previously planned to jointly defend the claims, but are now concerned that the MTA “does not want to hold HRJV accountable at all.”
The letter disputes the allegation that Amtrak slowed design reviews, saying many submissions were incomplete or noncompliant and that the contractor did not follow agreed-upon packaging and timing protocols. It notes that 22 site-specific safe work plans remain with the MTA or contractor for correction, some dating back months.
Amtrak also raises concerns about what it describes as a “toxic work culture,” accusing the MTA of a “cycle of conflict and retribution, including public attacks on Amtrak,” and citing Section 30 of the cost-sharing agreement, which requires mutual consent before public statements about the project. The railroad is demanding that the MTA retract the statements “specifically [Chairman] Lieber’s comments that we are in breach of contract.”
Despite the tensions, both agencies agree on the need for a revised project baseline. Amtrak says it has been asking for updated outage guidelines and a new substantial end date since fall 2023.
But the prospective baseline restart schedule presented Aug. 29 by the contractor includes assumptions, such as extended double-track disruptions and eliminating the one-week buffer between closures, that Amtrak says exceed its commitments.
Amtrak’s charter leaves open the possibility of service beginning in 2027, but lays out several conditions: a new Northeast Corridor access agreement, a service schedule jointly approved by the MTA and Connecticut Department of Transportation, and a reduction in Long Island Rail Road service to Penn Station so that additional Metro-North trains do not displace Amtrak or NJ Transit capacity.
Amtrak also rejects the MTA’s demand to share additional delay costs, saying the request is premature without full documentation of all sources of delay, including those tied to CSX, contractor performance and MTA-managed work. Section 8(e) of the agreement is cited, which allocates cost increases caused solely by MTA C&D to the agency.
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Federal funding is also at stake. Amtrak notes that its contribution, and the Federal-State Partnership grant that supports the project, is contingent on including good repair work on the Northeast Corridor. Significant reductions in scope, he warns, could jeopardize federal compliance and shift additional costs to the MTA. Both agencies describe Penn Station Access as a transformative project that will bring four ADA-accessible East Bronx stations, 19 miles of upgraded tracks, power and signal improvements, and new connectivity between Metro-North’s New Haven Line and New York Penn Station.
But when those benefits come depends on how quickly the MTA and Amtrak align with disruption, staffing, risk allocation and rerouting assumptions.
Mason says the biggest problem isn’t the back-and-forth between agencies, but what’s being told to the public.
“The public deserves better, she says. “They deserve the whole story, not just cherry-picked facts. The people of the Bronx need leaders who are willing to be transparent about what’s really going on and what can be done about it.”
