NYC Area's 3 Commuter Railroads Should Merge, Report Says

NEW YORK, NY — An influential planning group wants the New York City area's three major commuter railroads to merge into a single train network that could take passengers from the Hudson Valley straight to Lower Manhattan.

The proposed "Trans-Regional Express," or "T-REX," would connect the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and NJ Transit systems to greatly cut travel times and increase capacity on rail lines that will only see more strain as the area's population grows, the Regional Plan Association argues in a report published Wednesday.

The network would be "one of the largest public works projects undertaken since the early 20th century" and would cost as much as $71.4 billion to build over 30 years, the group's report says. But it would be an economic boon to the growing region and help move commuters off the roads and onto trains.

"Without a new design, substantial upgrades and governance changes, New York will fall farther behind the metropolitan areas that are investing in fully integrated metro systems, and fail to capitalize on this region’s global economic strengths," the report says.

The Regional Plan Association first recommended the combined network in November as part of its Fourth Regional Plan, a collection of ambitious proposals to drive the New York City area's future economic growth.

Modeled after similar systems in Paris and London, the T-REX would comprise three rail systems that are among the busiest in the nation. The Metro-North, LIRR and NJ Transit together carry 265 million riders each year to 389 stations along more than 2,100 miles of track, according to the report.

The new system would be built in three phases, the report says. The first would be a new crosstown rail line connecting Penn Station to Queens with a new station at 31st Street and Third Avenue. That would allow at least 30 more trains to enter Penn Station from New Jersey and Long Island. It would also give New Jersey commuters access to Manhattan's East Side as well as LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports.

The second phase would build new rail tunnels under the Hudson River betwen New Jersey and 57th Street in Manhattan. Those tunnels would connect to a new train line running underneath Third Avenue, giving commuters access to Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, where they could transfer to the LIRR at Atlantic Terminal.

Phase three would tie that new Third Avenue line to Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, relieiving the Metro-North's strained Park Avenue tunnel and connecting the Hudson Valley to the regional system. Another set of tunnels across the Hudson could replace New Jersey's Uptown PATH line and connect to the existing NJ Transit system.

Trains on the new T-REX network would run every 10 mintues during peak hours and every 15 minutes at all other times in many places, making it convenient to commute at any hour, the report says. The system would dramatically cut travel times, saving the region's residents about $3.4 billion a year, and shift about 400,000 trips a year from roads to the rails, according to the report.

"Travel times would be reduced from well over an hour to less than half an hour for many commuters, and traveling would be far more predictable," the report says.

The report recommends funding the entire project with $2.4 billion a year from various new revenue streams. The three railroads could be combined into a single tristate agency to manage the new system, the report says.

(Lead image: People wait to board a Long Island Rail Road train at Penn Station in November 2012. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)