HIA train station plan off track
Amtrak drags its feet, aviation director says
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
BY ELLEN LYON
Of The Patriot-News
Plans to build a train station at Harrisburg International Airport are being derailed by Amtrak, airport officials charge.
"They have been less than greatly cooperative with us," according to Fred Testa, HIA aviation director.
Amtrak officials said they were surprised to hear of Testa's concerns. They said they are trying to cooperate, but noted that the project is of greater importance to HIA than the railroad.
The Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority, which owns and operates HIA, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Corp. have been in negotiations over the proposed station for about three years.
The station would be on land owned by Amtrak and the airport, and its construction would involve moving a Norfolk Southern track.
Testa said that in planning a $240 million expansion at the airport, SARAA revived a plan first advanced by PennDOT in the early 1990s to build a train station at HIA.
SARAA had hoped that the $11 million train station -- which the authority would build, operate and maintain -- would open at the same time as a new parking garage and 350,000-square-foot terminal. All three buildings were to be connected by moving sidewalks.
But only the terminal and parking garage are on track for an August opening. Construction of the train station hasn't started.
The airport already has spent about $1 million on design of the station and relocation of utilities, with PennDOT to pay the rest through various grant sources, Testa said.
Now, he complained, "Amtrak is changing all the rules again."
Three years ago, Amtrak officials said the passenger railroad needed $750,000 to do its share of the work on the station, but they recently raised that amount to $2.5 million, Testa said.
Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel said he had never heard the $750,000 figure, but that last August, Amtrak officials estimated they would need $2.3 million for railroad protection, flagging, electrical work and other services, not including communications and signal work.
The most recent estimate, which includes the communications and signal pieces, is $3.3 million, Stessel said.
Testa said Amtrak officials also have demanded that they be given eight months' notice between the time the construction contract is awarded and when the contractor is given notice to proceed.
"I don't know of any contractor that is going to hold the price for eight months," he said. "They want final approval of all the plans even though they're not contributing a thin dime to the project."
Stessel said that amount of advance notice is standard in similar agreements that Amtrak has because it deals with several projects at the same time and needs to plan for its workers to be available.
"The last thing we would want is to have a contractor show up at the job site and be delayed by our inability to provide workers," he said. "There would be penalties involved with that."
Stessel added that Amtrak would try to be flexible with the eight-month requirement.
Testa also complained that at a meeting attended by Tim Edwards, HIA's deputy director of aviation, Amtrak expressed little interest in the project.
At the mid-March meeting, Edwards said, someone asked the Amtrak representatives about their level of commitment to the project.
"They basically came back and said they didn't care whether the train station was built or not," Edwards recalled. "This wasn't a high priority for them. They didn't have a high level of interest."
Stessel said it's a "true and fair statement" that Amtrak is willing to go along with the project, but "we would not do it on our own." He noted that a train station in Middletown is only about a mile away.
The Middletown station would close if a station opens at HIA, Testa said.
Joe Daversa, director of PennDOT's Bureau of Transportation and a participant in the negotiations, declined to be interviewed. He said through a spokesman that all the parties are continuing to negotiate.
Stessel said "it would be helpful if these issues were handled through the proper channels," instead of through the media.
He added that this is the first officials in Amtrak's engineering, legal and planning departments had heard of Testa's displeasure, and they were "all taken aback."
Testa said he is less optimistic about the train station's chances now than he was only a few months ago, but he has not given up hope.
"We're going to try to get to Mr. Gunn himself," Testa said, referring to Amtrak President and CEO David L. Gunn.
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but noted that the project is of greater importance to HIA than the railroad.
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This project is important to BOTH organizations. And this is exactly why Amtrak is failing...0 business sense IMO.