Amtrak’s slipshod planning risks delays, cost overruns at its largest infrastructure project

Amtrak’s poor planning could mean more delays and cost overruns on its largest infrastructure project, a $6 billion replacement of the Baltimore-Potomac tunnel, Amtrak’s inspector general said in a new audit.

Amtrak is starting to address the planning problems by beefing up staff, but initially it did not have an effective management structure or enough staff in place, the OIG said in the Sept. 27 report. The $6 billion project was initially assigned to one person, “who had limited support to provide the management and oversight needed for a program of this size and complexity,” the IG said.

The tunnel replacement marks Amtrak’s first project with a “delivery-partner” contract, which brings in the contractor early to help with design and construction and contract management. But Amtrak did not actually “onboard” the contractor until last year, and meanwhile “it relied on an overwhelmed internal team to manage multiple, complex, and concurrent commitments,” the IG said. “As a result, the requisite planning has yet to be completed despite the program approaching major construction, which significantly increases the risk of cost overruns and delays,” the report said. “Better planning would improve oversight and reduce risk.”

The $6 billion project relies on $4.7 billion in Federal Railroad Administration grants and $1.3 billion from the state of Maryland. It will replace 150-year-old, 1.4-mile Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, whose tight turns force trains to slow to 30 miles per hour, creating what is considered to be the largest bottleneck between Washington, D.C. and New Jersey. The tunnel will be renamed the Frederick Douglass Tunnel.

The project won federal approval in 2017 but remained on ice due to lack of funds until the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021. In 2023, FRA awarded the $4.7 billion through the IIJA’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program.

The estimated completion date is 2035. The Maryland Department of Transportation will also use the tunnel, according to the report.

The criticism comes as Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly to cut funding for Amtrak, in particular its northeast corridor, the most heavily used passenger rail line in the U.S., which the GOP contends is overfunded at the expense of the rest of the nation.

They’ve focused their aim in part on the Gateway project, one of the nation’s largest infrastructure projects, that will rebuild and rehab rail Amtrak and other rail infrastructure projects between Newark, New Jersey and Penn Station in New York City along the northeast corridor.

Last November, the House GOP proposed a 92% cut to Amtrak’s northeast corridor funding in its transportation budget. The move sparked public opposition from East Coast Republicans.

Last October, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, and other Republicans questioned Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the “decision-making behind certain grants” to the Gateway program and asked the DOT to “commit to giving fair consideration to the whole country for grants, rather than favoring the northeast corridor.”