Governor Hochul: “The day has finally arrived. And we start focusing on the needs of our commuters. Hardworking men and women looking to get to their jobs or get back home with their families. And again, we're making a positive difference in the lives of everyday New Yorkers.”

Hochul: “I'm here to declare that the opening of this incredible terminal and this connection, making life easier for commuters: This city is back, and we are back stronger than ever before.”

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, along with federal and local elected officials celebrated the official opening of Grand Central Madison with full Long Island Rail Road service to begin tomorrow, Monday, February 27. The new schedules provide increased service levels by a historic 41 percent and offer direct access to Midtown east, the biggest job hub in the country, provide more frequent, reliable service, including in Queens and Brooklyn, and true reverse-peak service on the Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma Branches for the first time.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here

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

What a great day this is. Wow, this is extraordinary. Isn't this great? Come on, New Yorkers. Don't be so cynical. This is incredible. This is incredible. Look how beautiful this is. I want to acknowledge, who we'll be hearing from momentarily, our great Majority Leader, our Senator, Chuck Schumer, who has done an amazing, amazing job delivering for New York. Thank you, Chuck Schumer. Our Congressman, Jerry Nadler, who represents this area. Thank you, Jerry, for being such a great fighter for us in Washington. I don't know if Carolyn Maloney is here, but I want to thank her for her stewardship of this project for many, many years. Carolyn Maloney.

Janno Lieber, you'll be hearing from him briefly – not briefly. Hopefully, briefly. We have a train to catch. It wasn't Freudian, I meant that. But truly, the definition of leadership and perseverance to get something quite incredible done, it was amazing to see you in operation, Janno, but thank you. And Catherine Rinaldi, our Metro North leader, our President of the whole operation here, making sure that the trains are running on time. But Catherine Rinaldi, thank you for all you do at the Long Island Rail Road. Steve Goodman, our Federal Transit Administration Region Two Administrator. Thank you, Steve. Keep the money coming. We're excited about doing so much more.

Anthony Simon, the sheet metal – SMART. We'll just call you SMART. They're smart, Anthony. Kathryn Garcia, who's the Head of Statewide Operations for all of us. Our Borough President, Mark Levine, has joined us. I also see that we have Steve Malone in the house here coming all the way from Long Island. Councilmembers – let's see, who else do we have? That's all I got on my list. Keith Powers. I'm looking right at you, Keith Powers. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I also want to thank the men and women of labor who got the job done. This place is glorious. You saw that this work was dangerous. John Durso and so many others, Matty Aracich. Unbelievable what was accomplished here. This is truly beautiful. It really is breathtaking, and it's such an extraordinary testament to the hard work that our labor unions and our friends have accomplished once again.

You know, today we make history. Finally, people have a chance to experience something that is magnificent, that is worthy of New York. And the story can be told literally in decades like we told over the years. It's been 112 years since the last extension of the Long Island Rail Road. Long time and coming. 110 years since the first new major terminal here in New York, 110 years. Sixty-seven years since the last major terminal was built in this country. Sixty years ago, people who were big dreamers thought of this very project back in 1963. They envisioned this, they talked about this. And 25 years ago, the whole thing started. My gosh, a lot of people have come and gone. A lot of people believed in this project who are not there with us today, but we honor them for being the visionaries that were known for here in this great state. It's long overdue, but we won't worry about that. It's here. The day has finally arrived. And we start focusing on the needs of our commuters. Hardworking men and women looking to get to their jobs or get back home with their families. And again, we're making a positive difference in the lives of everyday New Yorkers. That's what excites me. I love infrastructure. I love building. I love blowing things up, blowing up tunnels, starting over. It's all right. I love it all.

But when I know that we’re improving the quality of life for our commuters coming in from Long Island, coming in from Queens, that they can finally get something that is so precious and is more time back in their lives. Think about what you can do. Extra 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 80 minutes. You can work out, get a good exercise program going in the morning. You can pack the kids' lunches, make sure you're not late for their soccer game, little time for yourself. I'm a mom. I know that that's a rare commodity, but you don't have to navigate also that hectic commute across Midtown. I mean, the logic of it is just so genius. We're trying to bring people, many of them want to come to the East Side. This is a vibrant part of our city, but you have to go all the way across to Penn Station. And we'll get to that another time, but not too far in the future – we're fixing Penn Station. I want to make that as glorious as this.

But then you have to backtrack all the way across the city. So, when you're on a train, every minute matters. And we have had the most brilliant people engineering this feat for such a long time, and I think about, not just people collectively, but I stay in hotels in Midtown all the time, one in particular, and I become friends with everybody and some of the people who work there have to get up really early in the morning and make that commute to go their jobs. They go across town and have to come back just to give the precious gift of 40 more minutes. The woman who cleans the rooms in the hotels or the people who work the elevators, make the food for us. That is what I'm so happy about and I want to thank everybody who believed in this project, who never gave up on it.

And I believe that we start talking about making our commutes easier, but also safer. Safer. Just as the Mayor and I announced not that long ago, that our subway trains, for example, have seen a 20 percent decline in crime since we announced our initiative back in October to add more cops and cameras on the trains. Help people who need care – a 20 percent drop. I know we even have better numbers to announce, but I'm not going to announce them today. Give people that sense of confidence. Give them time back. Their job is waiting for them and there's no stopping us now. We are on the verge of accelerating, accelerating the New York comeback story with this project alone. We’re going to have over 200 – we’re adding 274 more trains each weekday. How is that possible, Janno? I mean, that's amazing, 274 more trains each weekday between Long Island and Midtown. It's a 41 percent increase in service. Improvements are going to be connecting other parts of our city, Metro North, four metro stations in the Bronx so people can get connected to the good paying jobs right here.

That is life changing. That is how we eliminate transit deserts. We also opened the third track cutting down delays. I mean, the trains are really running on time. That's not just a cliche, “Kathy, they're really running on time. The numbers are extraordinary.” And I don't have to bring anyone back to that nightmare, the summer of hell or nightmare, whatever was 2017, that some of you still may have PTSD. But my gosh, we didn't just say, “That's how it has to be. Sorry about that.” We said, “That's not good enough.” So, under Kathy's leadership, Janno’s leadership, we've really improved our on-time numbers. So, it's reliable. It's reliable. You know you're going to get home in time to catch that game. You know you're going to get to work on time. That's what makes a difference and we have so many more ideas on how we're going to reduce congestion.

It's good for the environment. More people taking public transportation. Yes, that's why we do this, but also continue to work with our Penn Station reconstruction, Second Avenue Subway, working on the Gateway Tunnel. We have so much more work to do. I’ll let the Majority Leader speak to those because he is behind every single one of them. He believes in this; he believes in this. But with the shops and the restaurants and the stunning space and the artwork, New Yorkers are going to be very different. No more looking at the ground and just kind of shuffling along, looking at your iPhone, talking – people are going to look up and look up, feel good about life, feel that step in their feet, that energy that we lost for a few years during that pandemic when there was so much uncertainty, felt so beaten down.

I'm here to declare that the opening of this incredible terminal and this connection, making life easier for commuters: This city is back, and we are back stronger than ever before. And I am so excited to be taking that train. And with that, let me open up to our Majority Leader, the one and only, Chuck Schumer.