East Slide Access: How to waste 10 years and billions of dollars

Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News
·2 min read

Today’s headline about the LIRR’s new East Side Access service to Grand Central refers both to the way the project got away from any cost and timeline controls as detailed by former Federal Transit Administration official Larry Penner in these pages yesterday and its unfortunate depth that is best reached by a chute instead of the long, slow escalator that no one should risk running down or Dashing Dan would become Broken Neck Dan.

Be it Least Side Access or East Side Excess, there’s little to celebrate as it took two and half times longer to finish and cost at least twice as much as was budgeted. Penn Station and Atlantic Terminal commuters now have fewer trains. And that Penn trip is going to get even worse when Amtrak forces the unneeded and unnecessary closure of the East River tubes for repairs, ignoring the MTA’s pleas that permanent fixes can be done nights and weekends.

We must learn from NYU’s new comprehensive study on transit costs five years in the making that examines low costs in Scandinavia, medium costs in Italy, high costs in the U.S and the highest costs in New York City. The NYU researchers found several ways to dig more economically:

  • Stop overbuilding, such as LIRR’s new terminal instead of using Grand Central’s lower level, with plenty of room, or going extravagant on the Second Ave. subway’s deep stations rather than stops closer to the surface. Ergo, Gateway should use Penn Station and not a new annex.

  • The need to use the best practices from overseas, such as repair in place for Sandy-damaged tubes.

  • End overuse of consultants, farming projects out to giant multinationals like WSP and AECOM and STV, which privatizes the risk, but reduces competition and increases costs.

  • Greater transparency and cooperation with other agencies, and not insist that each railroad have its own terminal. As for disclosure, all large FTA projects have monthly Project Management Oversight contractor reports. But the paying public doesn’t see the PMOC reports until years later. Publish them immediately.

Gov. Hochul, read the NYU report and let’s save time and money.