Welcome to the Penn Station Access quarterly newsletter. MTA’s Penn Station Access Project will bolster equity, regional connectivity, and reliability by upgrading Amtrak’s existing Hell Gate Line and providing four new accessible Metro North stations in the East Bronx with service to New York Penn Station. For past newsletter issues, click here. For updates on specific areas along the project corridor where work will take place, sign up here. See the latest MTA project schedule announcement here.
Para obtener más información sobre los hitos recientes del proyecto y el trabajo próximo, haga clic aqui.
Parkchester/Van Nest station, May 2026
PSA Progress
With the cold of winter behind us, progress on the PSA project is in full bloom! The Parkchester/Van Nest station continues to take shape, with the main entrance metal decking in place and the excavation for the future platform complete. At the Morris Park station, all north entrance utilities have been installed and are ready to be connected to the street, and steel installation for the entrance will follow shortly after. At Co-op City, the station head house and boiler room are being built out, with steel installation for the head house scheduled to start later this summer. Finally, at Hunts Point, the north entrance construction is progressing steadily with the installation of precast walls, cast-in-place foundations, and utility installations, which will be completed later this summer. On the track front, we have already completed 2.6 miles of brand-new track construction. Overhead, we removed 23 century-old overhead catenary system (OCS) structures in the Van Nest area, and extensive electrical/signal work and feeder transfers have been completed.
Left: Original Pelham Lane Bridge Right: Reconstructed Pelham Lane Bridge, May 2026
Bridges Roundup
Work on the Pelham Lane Bridge, that we highlighted previously in Newsletter 15, is officially complete! Both Track 1 and Track 2 spans were demolished and replaced over the course of approximately three months. Now, train service has resumed on both tracks, and the site has been cleaned up, landscaped and fenced.
At the Eastchester Road Bridge, Track 3 erection and ballast retainer/wire wall work are complete, and Track 1 demolition is planned to begin in mid-June, with roughly 4–6 weeks of demolition followed by 12 weeks of new span construction. To safely complete this work, there will be partial road closures during demolition and one or two full weekend closures of Eastchester Road during girder erection. Look out for further updates about these “super-weekends.” At the Bronx River Bridge, 90% of work is complete with just installation of track and ballast remaining. Finally, at the Bronxdale Avenue Bridge, work is halfway there, Tracks 2 and 4 are done, with Tracks 1 and 3 next to be demolished and constructed.
Installing formwork for concrete placement, May 2026
Upcoming Activities
Substation work is ramping up, Co-op City substation steel installation began in April and New Rochelle substation work and the Oak substation are entering construction in summer 2026. Trackbed excavation work under our latest long-term track outage will focus on the Bronx Interlocking and Van Nest areas. At the New Rochelle Yard, activities to prep the site and the installation of wall foundations have started. Work will continue at all four stations, with the steel installation at Morris Park being a major highlight!
Jim Seisfeld, Environmental Manager
Meet the Team: Jim Seisfeld
Jim has over 40 years of experience in project management roles, taking on challenges from the land to the sea. His early career was in marine construction, which included port and channel dredging, remediating New York State’s largest active waste site, and hardening utility infrastructure following Hurricane Sandy. He later transitioned to capital construction for oil pollution prevention, and most recently, rail construction. Now on the Penn Station Access project, Jim serves as the MTA Project Management Team’s Manager of Environmental Compliance and Sustainability. In this role, Jim manages people and processes. Every aspect of the PSA project has an environmental or sustainability element, from the recycling goal of 75% to achieving ISI Envision Gold. Jim ensures that all chemical products used on the project are approved for environmental, safety, and sustainability requirements and that all environmental hazards are investigated, reviewed, and managed according to regulatory requirements, this keeps Jim and his team very busy.
Jim says the PSA project “keeps me on my toes, looking out for potential compliance issues which might pop up when least expected,” and he is excited about the transformational aspects of the project. “Opening the East Bronx to commuter railroad travel will make it much easier for people living and working along the Hell Gate Line to move between the different communities which will help grow the vibrance of the region.” Jim is a life-long resident of the Long Island Sound Shore area and enjoys his free time outdoors and close to nature. He expresses his creativity by making things, including a collection of small boats he has either made and/or collected, and he has been quilting since middle school.
Left: New Rochelle Earth Day Festival, April 2026; Right: Safety Week, May 2026
Community Corner
The Penn Station Access project has been busy building relationships both on and off the job site. In April, the PSA Outreach team attended the City of New Rochelle’s Earth Day Festival and the Bronx River Alliance Open House Event, bringing along fun activities and project information. Our Outreach Team is also meeting with four Community Boards across the East Bronx, and to the Bronx Westchester Community Council (BWCC) to share construction progress and upcoming activities. Meanwhile on site, the construction team observed Safety Week with briefings to reinforce health and safety of the crews.
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