So far, MTA not budging on Tibbetts Brook project stance

The MTA has made it clear it is still not on board with giving its approval to access to water pipes on its property so that the Tibbetts Brook daylighting and Putnam Greenway extension project can advance.

“Regarding plans for Tibbetts Brook, the MTA is engaged with DEP (city environmental protection department) to ensure continuing safe operations of the Bronx North Rail Yard,” MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan told The Riverdale Press.

“Metro-North evaluated requests from area elected officials and advocates regarding expansion of the Putnam Greenway and determined that because of space constraints and operational needs, the greenway is incompatible with an active rail yard,” Donovan said.

The state quasi-public transportation authority may force a lengthy public review process before eventually giving up access to its right-of-way south of West 225th Street. The daylighting cannot proceed without an easement granted for a six-foot conduit passing below Metro-North’s operational tracks, an MTA official said during an April 24 virtual meeting of the Tibbetts Advisory Group.

While Karen Argenti, secretary and board member of the Bronx Council on Environmental Quality, said earlier this month her group and others are trying to persuade the MTA to work as a partner on the project.

“I am happy that the MTA and DEP are talking to each other, that the environment is on the agenda, and pray that both parties can reach an inter-municipal agreement quickly,” Argenti told The Riverdale Press. “I would not like to see this adversely impact the Daylighting Project that many have been working on for over 30 years. Bureaucracy is such a slow process.”

One of the groups joining with the BCEQ is the Marble Hill Resident Council, which represents tenants of the NYCHA Marble Hill housing project. During a meeting late last week, the council showed BCEQ members a petition it has started to ask the MTA to change its mind about possibly not granting the right of way to the DEP for Tibbetts Brook project.

The petition reads: “We call for a reversal of MTA plans and priorities. We believe the Marble Hill community deserves access to a Greenway along the abandoned Putnam Railroad and the continuation of the Greenway along the Harlem River. We strenuously oppose plans to run railroad cars carrying garbage from Metro-North riders and contractors close to the NYCHA Marble Hill Project. We join with the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality for a Greenway not a Garbage Transfer Station in the area from 230th to 225th streets on the old Putnam Rail.”

The MTA maintains its Metro-North division is using the property in question for storage and inspection of rail-mounted maintenance vehicles and removal of waste. The authority said it met with city department of environmental protection three years ago to discuss the project and make safety issues clear. It said the DEP went ahead with the project anyway without sharing incremental designs with the MTA.

Now that designs have been approved and 75 percent complete, the MTA said it is concerned about elements that pose safety challenges. The MTA has asked the DEP to comply with minimum offsets and clearances, allowing for inspection of railcars and mitigate increased flooding risks.

It claims that since according to U.S. rail yard standards the current North Rail Yard is “extraordinarly tightly packed” against its neighbors the yard’s safety could be at risk if designs are followed.

As for the Putnam Greenway extension, the MTA said it has not received a formal request from the city department of transportation or parks department. A spokesman referred any questions about the greenway routes to the DOT or parks department.

Two weeks ago, members of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality and the Harlem River Working Group as well as residents took a tour of the Metro-North right of way on one of the hottest days of the summer. The Sept. 7 tour began at West 230th Street at the Major Deegan Expressway and ended up at the West 225th Street overpass after passing through Bailey Avenue.

The reason for the walk was to identify the property’s use and alternative potential to create an important connection to the Harlem River Greenway and extend the Empire State Trail. As far as the greenway extension, not getting the easement will literally block the extension.

That’s when they discovered garbage bins at the site.

“They are putting garbage bins there now,” said Karen Argenti, a board member of the council who was joined by council members Chauncy Young and Robert Fanuzzi. “Jodie Colon (formerly of the New York Botanical Garden) told us what they were doing with a transfer station.”

From what the group of walkers could ascertain, Metro-North is planning to use the right of way for a transfer station, which for the most part MTA confirmed.

“It’s Metro-North’s garbage that comes from the metro area,” Argenti said. “Some of it comes from Long Island. It’s Long Island garbage. It’s not Bronx garbage.”

What Jodie and Young noticed two days before the Sept. 7 tour was that land that is supposed to be used to unite the renovated Tibbetts Brook property was quite overgrown and showed no evidence of being used by Metro-North.

The Tibbetts Brook project is due to break ground in Winter 2025 if all approvals and easements are granted.

Besides the Metro-North easement, all that stands in the way for the daylighting/greenway expansion are approvals by the MTA to issue a uniform land use review procedure, or ULURP, and the STB’s approval of the interim trail use. The ULURP is necessary because engineers working on the daylighting would need access to water pipes on the Bronx North Yard owned by the MTA.

According to the project’s timeline, the ULURP certification is expected by September and the STB’s decision by August 2024. The STB has already approved the abandonment request by CSX, which has been effective since May 31, as posted in the Federal Register.

The Bronx environmental council is preparing for a meeting with the MTA to discuss a possible solution for a compromise on granting the easement so the trail can be extended, Argenti wrote in an email before the tour.