cancellation or consolidation<\/a> of three weekday Amtrak trips in 2023 to accommodate long-delayed work on the East River Tunnels to repair damage done by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.\u00a0<\/p>\nMetro-North service was supposed to start this spring but was shelved in January after Amtrak, which controls the rail lines north of Poughkeepsie, said it would not sanction the Albany run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, Amtrak planned to\u00a0restore all suspended Amtrak Empire Service trains.<\/p>\n
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The Times Union asked the governor\u2019s office whether Hochul has any intention of returning to the negotiating table with Amtrak.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesman pointed to statements Hochul made in January, where she praised Amtrak\u2019s decision to restore Empire Service as a win for riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She noted that the restoration meant that Metro-North would no longer run temporary service to Albany, though she remained open to expanding it in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remain fully committed to short and long-term proposals to bring better transit \u2014 including expanded Metro-North service if the demand exists \u2014 beyond Poughkeepsie and into the rest of the Hudson Valley and Capital Region,\u201d the governor had said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A spokesman for Amtrak said the company is one of several stakeholders involved in the potential Metro-North service to Albany plan, along with the state Department of Transportation and CSX.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During Amtrak\u2019s initial research, it became apparent there were several significant challenges with bringing this plan to life, and it became redundant once the company was able to restore full Empire Service to and from the region, the spokesman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By taking advantage of schedule changes in place to support major infrastructure projects on the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak was able to identify the equipment necessary to fully restore the Empire Service schedule that was in place before the East River Tunnel rehabilitation project began, and fully restored service in early March, the spokesman said. The project is on schedule and within budget with completion expected next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to the creation of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Metro-North, the New York Central Railroad carried passengers on the Hudson Line between Grand Central and Albany. Since the 1970s, Amtrak has been the only passenger train to run between New York City and Albany \u2014 the company\u2019s fifth-busiest route in the country.<\/p>\n
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The $1.6 billion East River tunnels reconstruction project, which involves two of the four tunnels connecting rail service to Manhattan, is slated to take three years to complete. Amtrak has faced criticism for the impacts of service reductions on upstate and Hudson Valley commuters.<\/p>\n
To ease the crunch, Amtrak restored one daily round trip between Albany and Penn Station and implemented a $99 price cap on the coach flex-fare seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Gov.]()
<\/p>\n
Gov. Kathy Hochul announcing a now-scrapped daily Metro-North train service from\u00a0Albany-Rensselaer to Grand Central in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
During the news conference on Monday at the Capitol, lawmakers said an expansion of Metro-North service to Albany provides a more affordable and frequent alternative to Amtrak. They said that extending the line to include stops in Rhinecliff and Hudson would boost regional tourism, support the workforce, and reduce reliance on congested highways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Lawmakers also said fares would be cheaper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Metro-North tickets are often substantially cheaper than Amtrak. A peak Metro-North ticket to Poughkeepsie is roughly $29.75, whereas Amtrak\u2019s lowest fares are often around $39.50 and can climb to more than $70 for one-way trips when availability is low.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State Sen. Pat Fahy, who represents all of Montgomery County and portions of Albany and Schenectady counties, said that the push to expand service is about giving riders more affordable and flexible options, especially after strong public backlash when Amtrak proposed service cuts in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fahy said the overwhelming response revealed significant demand for more trains, particularly options that include direct access to Grand Central Terminal in addition to Penn Station.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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But such an expansion could also come at a cost. The state levies a tax on employers and self-employed individuals in the 12-county area covered by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, and it\u2019s possible that regions in upstate would have to pay into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fahy said the tax would be \u201csomething that would have to be explored,\u201d but noted that all counties served by the MTA pay into the tax, including\u00a0Orange County.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A train engine is parked at the Amtrak repair yard on Monday last year. Lawmakers want Hochul and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[611,612,844,9,56,63,65,64,1165],"class_list":["post-211769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-hvexp","tag-hvnews","tag-latestnews","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-state-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211769","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=211769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}