Opinion: Penn Station is Being Derailed by Washington

“That Washington would have a better understanding of the complexities of movement in the New York metropolitan area is preposterous.”

The LIRR entrance at Penn Station. (Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Office)

The announcement by the Federal Railroad Administration that Amtrak will take over the rebuilding of Penn Station from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority signals that the Trump Administration has no idea what it is doing. 

The fundamental insanity of the idea that Amtrak take over rebuilding Penn Station is that  Amtrak does not use Penn Station. The station today serves the 4,000-square-mile metropolitan Area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with its 20 million residents. Reconfiguring of its tracks and platforms could provide through traffic to Grand Central Terminal and ultimately the metropolitan area.

That Washington would have a better understanding of the complexities of movement in the New York metropolitan area is preposterous. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stating that the takeover would make the  station “safe and clean” illustrates his complete lack of comprehension of the Penn Station rebuilding task. It is not about a building; it is about a 21st century rail network critical to the region’s economy.

While it is true that Amtrak “owns” Penn Station, that is only because, with the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad in 1970, the federal government took over almost all the railroads in the Northeast. The demolition of the stately Penn Station and the building of a  new station underground with a sports complex on top of it was commenced by the  Pennsylvania Railroad in 1963, several years before its financial collapse. 

Penn Station, after its reopening 1968, served two functions. The simplest function was as  Amtrak’s New York station when the railroad was founded in 1971. The trains came down from Boston and up from Washington as trains had done since 1910, when the original Pennsylvania Station opened. Amtrak’s through traffic used the same platforms those earlier trains did.

The platforms were severely obstructed in 1968 when Madison Square  Garden was constructed over the station. Support columns came down onto the platforms blocking the flow of passengers getting on and off the trains. Notably, Amtrak today has a new and glamorous station, the adjacent Moynihan Hall over those same existing platforms. Amtrak does not use the existing Penn Station anymore, only the tracks and platforms below. 

The vastly more complicated function is Penn Station’s role as one of the two major commuter rail stations in New York City. Penn Station is now, even without Amtrak, the busiest transit station in the Western Hemisphere. Handling New Jersey Transit trains, Long Island Railroad trains and the 1, 2 and 3 subways lines represents vastly more traffic per hour than Amtrak’s intercity service ever has. This is traffic vital to New York’s productivity. 

Moreover, that traffic is about to get even more complicated. The 1910 Penn Sation had only two tracks coming into it from under the Hudson River. Those tracks then divided up into 21 tracks and platforms to serve passengers. Today’s Penn Station has no room for any more than those existing 21 tracks and platforms.

Hurricane Sandy did serious damage to the two tracks under the river, threatening their failure. The 2011 Gateway project is underway, bringing two new tracks under the Hudson River into the station and, with their division, doubling the number of tracks needed to double the hourly service. The real rebuilding of Penn Station will be underground, creating tracks and platforms. All the new service from Gateway into the station will be for New York’s metropolitan area commuter needs. While Amtrak will use those new tracks under the river, its New York station stop will continue to be Moynihan Hall.

The Gateway project is the key to both Amtrak’s future in the Northeast Corridor and to Penn Station’s role supporting the metropolitan area’s economy. Despite its critical importance, Gateway was stopped by President Trump in his first term. President Biden restarted the work.

The administration that nearly killed New York train service in its first term is not the team to rebuild Penn Station today.

Charles Lauster is an architect in New York City.

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