Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces New Long Island Rail Road Terminal in Midtown Manhattan Will Be Grand Central Madison

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the 700,000-square-foot Long Island Rail Road terminal nearing completion below Grand Central Terminal and Madison Avenue from 43rd Street to 48th Street will be named Grand Central Madison. The new name Grand Central Madison harkens to the station's location nestled underneath Grand Central Terminal and the famed Madison Avenue corridor. LIRR train service to the new terminal, representing the largest expansion of LIRR service in the 112 years since the original Pennsylvania Station and its East River Tunnels opened on September 8, 1910, remains on pace to begin before the end of the year. The LIRR will release draft timetables this week showing the new service in advance of public information sessions.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here .

AUDIO of the event is available here .

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page .

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. First of all, I want to acknowledge Janno Lieber, the Chair and CEO of the MTA. Janno, get a nice spot. Janno Lieber has found his spot. He's also found his spot as a tremendous leader of the MTA. Also, we're joined by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, thank you for being such a champion of these projects.

Cathy Rinaldi, the president of Metro North and interim president of LIRR, she is here. Councilmember Keith Powers, and of course Anthony Simon, the General Chairman of our union that is doing all the work right now. You may hear a train come through, that is Anthony's members training on this to make sure that we are prepared for the future. And the future is exciting.

This is a great day. I know we've been reeled with a lot of horrific news coming out of places like Buffalo, my hometown, and the slaughter of children in Texas. And so, sometimes it's just hard to think about how you shift from the pain of those stories to different issues, but it shows the resiliency of our country and our state, as we continue to mourn those, and find laws to protect against future assaults, as we're working on right now in our capital, but also to know that that we must carry on.

And this project is something that New Yorkers have been talking about for two and a half decades. And they've talked about this Long Island Railroad extension to the side of Manhattan, they call it the East Side Access for a long time. People say like, "What is East Side Access? What do we talk about? Access to what? What part of the East Side?" So one of the first things I want to talk about is just the name. Let's freshen up the whole experience, let people have a different name that actually means something to them.

So my first announcement today is that this transit hub, this, which will soon be one of the largest transit hubs in America when it's completed, deserves something better, something a little more distinguished. So I'm proud to announce that this new LIRR terminal will be called Grand Central Madison. That is what we're unveiling here today, our new logo. And you can see a lot of thought went into the naming process; Grand Central, Madison. Okay, we put the two together. Don't have to overcomplicate these things sometimes, but it is impactful and it's very different descriptive of what's going on here.

But when you're talking about a place as iconic as Grand Central, you can't change that. This conjures up the images of glory, and a time in the early 1900s, 1911, 1912, when the world was stunned by the majesty of this building itself, and how it has expanded and morphed into such a critical lifeline for this community and connecting the far reaches of places like Long Island to now this central core.

But this has gone on such a long time. They were talking about it in 1998, pre-planning, 2001, it sort of started, the construction of tunneling started in 2007. For 24 years now, we've been hearing about this project. And everyone always just thought it'll get done someday in the future, the future, the future. The future is 2022.

This will be accomplished, completed in its entirety, no more dragging heels, no more putting it off, no more delays - because people have been waiting a long time to have a world-class experience when they board the trains to go to their home on Long Island, when they come to the city. They have long deserved a world-class experience and they will get that by the end of this year.

By the end of this year, that is our commitment. And Janno knows, from our many meetings together, I always say, let's talk about the projects, let's talk about the current status. Show me the trajectory of where we're going, literally month by month. And then, how can we shave off some of those months? How can we do it sooner? And Janno always finds a way. Keeping these projects on time is important, especially when there's already been a 24 year history, but now let's just get it done.

Let's declare this as the year we finally accomplished this extraordinary transformation, what will now be the Grand Central Madison concourse. And it's not just going to be a place you're going to walk through. You're going to have incredible retail experiences, and food and a bar, so you can have that cocktail as you're ready to go. You can have drinks to go now, thanks legislature, for what we did.

But, you think about how necessary this was. When the LIRR was built, there were 37,000 people living on Long Island - I mean, that's one of the smaller towns today. And today, the number is 2.8 million. So the connection of all 11 lines to Grand Central was so desperately needed.

And then, when it's done, it's going to make a difference in people's lives. I've talked about infrastructure since my first budget was unveiled back in January, and I don't talk about infrastructure in those cold, sterile terms, engineers like to talk about it that way, I talk about it differently. I like to talk about it connecting - connecting people to places, to their jobs, to their recreation, and ultimately to their families.

And if we have the opportunity, as I spoke about on October 31st, when I took the inaugural maiden ride here, I talked about the experience of giving people something precious back in their lives. What is the best thing we can give people? And for many families, it's their time. If we can shave 40 minutes off their travel time every day, that's more time to get ready in the morning, make sure the kids' backpacks are packed, they didn't forget their lunch. Maybe at the end of the day, make sure you don't miss a sporting event. Maybe a little time for yourself for exercise. You can do whatever you want with it, but our job is to give that to you by making transformational infrastructure improvements.

So half of Long Island commuters are expected to go through this terminal. We look forward to welcoming them with a world-class experience. It'll also create a faster connection to JFK Airport. And this is such a huge win. It'll be the largest rail terminal built in the country since 1950. We're showing what New Yorkers do, even during a global pandemic and we were hit the hardest.

This is what this incredible team behind me accomplished because they would not let go of the objective of offering this experience. And giving people their time back, and continuing to invest, and making sure that the jobs are continuing to grow. We didn't stop at all. And as a result, we're on the cusp, almost done.

So this is the largest LIRR expansion in 112 years, since the original Penn Station East River Tunnels opened. And I say it's about time. So when we have a chance to come back here with the unveiling by the end of the year, maybe we can shorten a little bit of time there too, it'll just be incredible.

So, it's not just about the current experience, it's also about expanding where, we anticipate this is going to lead to an expansion of service up to 40%. Yes. That's what happens. That's what you're required to do when your population grows. Infrastructure laid behind too long. We are remedying the wrongs of the past. And so, we'll have a 40% increase.

Morning rush trains will increase to 158 trains from 113. Afternoon/evening trains will increase 158 from 98. Trains will run every 30 minutes to Huntington and Ronkonkoma, every 15 minutes to Mineola and Hicksville. And the West Hempstead branch will gain through train service around the clock. So, these new schedules will reduce the large gaps in service, especially around some rather busy areas, like Ronkonkoma and Port Jefferson.

So that's progress. That's what New Yorkers have been waiting for. And that's what New Yorkers are just about to receive when we finally finished this project, now under the new banner of Grand Central Madison. So we are providing services, experience, and a world-class experience that has been long overdue and giving people back the gift of time.

So I want to thank Janno Lieber and all the members of the team, the construction teams, the people wearing hard hats, not just on today, but every day they're getting up there and doing such hard work. And I have such admiration for them and the people that Anthony Simon represents as well. So, so with that, I'd like to welcome Janno Lieber to give more details, but this is an exciting day. It is a significant milestone, and I cannot wait to take the first official ride as we welcome it before the end of this year in 2022. Thank you.