Committee Meeting of SENATE LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ASSEMBLY JUDICIARY COMMITTEE “The Committees will receive testimony from invited guests, including Wick Moorman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Amtrak; Scot Naparstek, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Amtrak; and Steven Santoro, Executive Director of NJ Transit. The hearing will focus on the causes of the recent Amtrak derailments at Pennsylvania Station in New York and the NJ Transit train breakdown in the North River Tunnels; the responsibility for safety and maintenance on the Northeast Corridor Line; the response of both agencies to the commuter delays and overcrowding that resulted from the incidents; and the impact of the planned Gateway Project on trans-Hudson rail capacity, safety, and service” LOCATION: Committee Room 4 DATE: April 28, 2017 State House Annex 10:00 a.m. Trenton, New Jersey MEMBERS OF COMMITTEES PRESENT: Senator Robert M. Gordon, Chair Senator Loretta Weinberg, Vice Chair Senator M. Teresa Ruiz Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr. Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos Jr. Assemblyman John F. McKeon, Chair Assemblywoman Elizabeth Maher Muoio Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll Assemblyman Erik Peterson ALSO PRESENT: Miriam Bavati Mark J. Magyar Kevin Logan Sarah A. Fletcher Senate Majority Assembly Republican Office of Legislative Services Kate McDonnell Committee Aide Committee Aides Assembly Majority Committee Aides Hearing Recorded and Transcribed by The Office of Legislative Services, Public Information Office, Hearing Unit, State House Annex, PO 068, Trenton, New Jersey TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Charles Wickliffe “Wick” Moorman IV President and Chief Executive Officer Amtrak 13 Scot Naparstek Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Amtrak 28 Stephen J. Gardner Executive Vice President and Chief, Northeast Corridor Business Development Amtrak 54 Steven H. Santoro Executive Director New Jersey Transit 105 James A. Sincaglia Deputy General Manager of Transportation Rail Operations New Jersey Transit 151 Paul Wyckoff Chief Government and External Affairs New Jersey Transit 156 APPENDIX: Testimony, plus attachments submitted by Charles Wickliffe “Wick” Moorman IV 1x Testimony, plus attachments submitted by Scot Naparstek 17x Testimony, plus attachment submitted by Steven H. Santoro 26x TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Page Facebook Comments from April 28, 2017 regarding New Jersey Transit/Amtrak received by Assemblyman McKeon submitted by Assemblyman John F. McKeon 40x Newspaper Articles, and Letters submitted by Senate Majority Office 42x Timeline of Derailments and Delays submitted by Assembly Majority Office 57x pnf: 1-163 ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN F. McKEON (Chair): Before I turn it over to Chairman Gordon, if anybody is late who was supposed to be here, New Jersey Transit will give you a slip. (laughter and groans) SENATOR ROBERT M. GORDON (Chair): I hope the rest of the hearing goes better than that one. (laughter) SENATOR GORDON: Good morning, everyone. This hearing -- this joint hearing of the Assembly Judiciary Committee and Senate Legislative Oversight Committee will come to order. Would you all please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? (all recite pledge) May I have a roll call, please? MS. FLETCHER (Committee Aide): Chairman Gordon. SENATOR GORDON: Here. MS. FLETCHER: Senator Ruiz. SENATOR RUIZ: Here. MS. FLETCHER: Senator Kean. SENATOR KEAN: Here. MS. FLETCHER: Senator Kyrillos. SENATOR KYRILLOS: Yes. SENATOR GORDON: On your side. ASSEMBLYMAN McKEON: Yes, please. MS. BAVATI (Committee Aide): Assemblyman Peterson. ASSEMBLYMAN PETERSON: Here. MS. BAVATI: Assemblyman Carroll. ASSEMBLYMAN CARROL: Present. MS. BAVATI: Assemblyman Zwicker. 1 ASSEMBLYMAN ZWICKER: Here. MS. BAVATI: Assemblywoman Muoio. ASSEMBLYWOMAN MUOIO: Here. MS. BAVATI: Chairman McKeon. ASSEMBLYMAN McKEON: Present. And if we can, Assemblyman Peterson, if you would like to have the pleasure of introducing two of your children who are here with you today on Bring Your Child to Work Week. ASSEMBLYMAN PETERMAN: Yes; so as my staff will tell you, I’m always late. So I am late by a day to Take Your Child to Work (laughter). I have two of my daughters -- my oldest and my youngest, Sophie and Samantha -- here with me today. And I thought this would be -- this Committee hearing would be a good experience for them, not only to see this beautiful room, and to see what our State is all about, but to see an issue that’s topical and being talked about today in the press; and to see what happens, and to get an idea of how government runs. So thank you for indulging me. ASSEMBLYMAN McKEON: Welcome; very much so. Chairman. SENATOR GORDON: Thank you, Chairman. I want to welcome our witnesses today, from both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Before we hear from them, I have a brief statement I’d like to make; and it is as follows. After years of neglect and underfunding, it is clear that our region’s and our nation’s mass transit infrastructure is in a state of 2 crisis. New Jersey’s rail and bus commuters have suffered a lot in recent years, but the last five weeks have been among the worst; indeed, a foretaste of what we face if one of the Sandy-damaged Hudson River tunnels is forced to close. Two derailments just 10 days apart at New York’s Penn Station, including an April 3 derailment that closed 8 out of 21 tracks and caused a week of overcrowding, frustration, and delays. Then came a breakdown that trapped 1,200 New Jersey Transit riders in the Hudson tunnel for three hours; another Amtrak breakdown; and a series of electrical problems. These breakdowns, one after another, have made New Jersey Transit’s rail commute a nightmare for 80,000 daily trans-Hudson commuters, and spilled over to create delays for the hundreds of thousands who commute by PATH, bus, and car. They threaten our region’s quality of life and economic future. Today we will hear from the top executives at Amtrak and New Jersey Transit about why these breakdowns occurred, what could have been done to prevent them, how they plan to fix our broken rail system, and how they plan to serve the tens of thousands of rail commuters who will be displaced or delayed by the planned closures of New York Penn Station tracks and platforms this summer. What is clear is that the current system of management for our regional transportation network is not working. We need better coordination, better contingency planning for emergencies, and better customer service. We need answers, and we need the finger-pointing to stop. 3 We know that both Amtrak and New Jersey Transit have been underfunded for years, but we need to know why emergency repairs were not made to the New York Penn Station tracks prior to the derailments, when Amtrak officials knew that the condition of the creaking timbers and worn steel beams under the tracks posed a safety threat. And if they do not pose a safety threat, we need to understand why Amtrak is reportedly planning to shut down four to six tracks this summer, during rush hour, to expedite the repair schedule, knowing the commuter nightmare that will create. We know that it is the height of hypocrisy for Governor Christie to attack Amtrak and to threaten to withhold funding for our Northeast Corridor contribution. After all, he was the one who cancelled the ARC tunnel, and New Jersey Transit has a worse safety record than Amtrak. Not only that, New Jersey Transit was the last commuter agency in the Northeast to reach agreement with Amtrak on its Northeast Corridor funding agreement, and the Christie Administration didn’t sign an agreement to pay its bill to Amtrak for Fiscal Year 2016 until April 3, after the morning derailment. We are puzzled why Amtrak developed and announced its plan for major repairs and track closures this summer before meeting with and informing New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Railroad, which carry 92 percent of the passengers that use Penn Station. And that lack of coordination is not an isolated incident. I met with senior PATH officials yesterday, after the Port Authority Board meeting, and learned that neither Amtrak nor New Jersey Transit has reached out yet to PATH. I find that remarkable, given the fact that on 4 the day of the March 24 derailment, PATH carried a record 325,000 passengers, including 60,000 displaced New Jersey Transit commuters, and an extra 50,000 riders a day the week after the April 3 derailment. Maybe you should include PATH in your planning for how to handle the Penn Station repairs; they are waiting to hear from you. More than anything, the commuter crisis of the past five weeks underscores the need for us to do everything we can to make sure that the Gateway Rail Tunnel project moves forward as quickly as possible. Construction is ready to go on the Portal Bridge in July, and tunnel construction work could begin this fall, but only if the Federal funding is there. We cannot afford to play Russian roulette with the lives and livelihoods of our commuters by gambling that the 106-year-old Hudson River tunnels -- whose structure and electrical systems were ravaged by Sandy -- will be able to stay in service until the Gateway tunnels are finished. We saw what happened with a New Jersey Transit train breakdown in the tunnel, and we risk a regional recession and commuter Armageddon -- as Senator Booker put it -- if one of those tunnels has to be closed for months of repairs. Clearly, time is not on our side. Chairman McKeon. ASSEMBLYMAN McKEON: Thank you very much, Chairman. You mentioned Chairman McKeon, but I’m not Chairman McKeon right now. I’m one of the tens of thousands of commuters who have been long-frustrated. 5 I’m the commuter who I have known from birth, who no longer lives with me, but is an embedded lobbyist -- as maybe many of us have in our own households.