RHINEBECK \u2014 In the summer of 2022, Dutchess County officials cheered the announcement that former President Joe Biden’s administration had awarded $28.2 million for long-sought repairs to the Rhinecliff Amtrak station, one of the busiest passenger train depots in New York.<\/p>\n
But on Thursday, officials received word from President Donald Trump’s administration that the funding had been abruptly paused for further evaluation by the U.S. Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt speaks to the utter failure of this federal administration that as it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars to bring us to the brink of an energy crisis and global destabilization, it has also paused work on a train station that undermines our constituents\u2019 ability to use mass transit,\u201d state Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, who represents the area, said in a statement. \u201cThe United States has the highest GDP in the world, and yet we can\u2019t get these basic infrastructure needs taken care of, let alone build a reliable, affordable and high-speed rail system, which is what we should already be prioritizing.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, who pushed for years<\/a> to renovate the station, said Friday in a statement that his office had been in touch with local leaders and would \u201cfight to make sure the Hudson Valley gets all the resources it was promised for this long overdue rehabilitation project.\u201d<\/p>\n The Empire State Passengers Association, a public transit advocacy group, issued a statement Friday expressing \u201cextreme disappointment\u201d in the pause and said they feared it would lead to a complete cancellation of the project. The association said the delay means Rhinecliff riders \u201cwill wait even longer for these badly needed\u201d repair investments and full Americans with Disabilities Act\u00a0access at the station.<\/p>\n It was unclear what led to the pause. The state Department of Transportation referred questions to the Federal Railroad Administration, which is overseeing the project alongside state transportation officials. The FRA did not respond to inquiries.<\/p>\n Under Biden, the U.S. Department of Transportation granted the funding as part of a $233 million plan to modernize intercity passenger rail service across the country. The\u00a0money allotted to\u00a0Rhinecliff<\/a> was intended to replace the station\u2019s existing platform, improve train signaling machinery and construct a pedestrian bridge. The project also included funding to replace the station\u2019s crumbling stairs and add new elevators.<\/p>\n The project was under environmental review at the time of the pause and construction had been set to begin in the spring of 2027.<\/p>\n The federal transportation department said in 2022 that the upgrades were needed to increase the number of trains running daily on the Empire Corridor between New York\u2019s Penn Station and Albany. The Rhinecliff station, located about 90 miles north of New York City, serves about 26 Amtrak trains daily. Nearly 219,000 riders passed through the station last year, making it the fourth-busiest Amtrak station in New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n Schumer said local officials had been working \u201cfor years\u201d with Amtrak and state and federal agencies \u201cto develop the plans to build a new, more accessible train station the community deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n The project hit a roadblock earlier this year when Amtrak released detailed plans on its proposed plans for the site. Rhinebeck Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia said in a statement that her \u201cmain concern\u201d was the size of the proposed pedestrian bridge, which she said was \u201cmuch larger than the existing one and dwarfs the station.\u201d Amtrak officials had \u201cflagged the size as a possible concern,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n Neither Amtrak nor Spinzia responded Friday to questions about what caused the pause or whether local concerns had played a role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RHINEBECK \u2014 In the summer of 2022, Dutchess County officials cheered the announcement that former President Joe Biden’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35845,611,612,844,9,11,10,49,51,50,608],"class_list":{"0":"post-194594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-dutchco","9":"tag-hvexp","10":"tag-hvnews","11":"tag-latestnews","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}