Penn Push: Railroads Say They Need to Expand Station’s Footprint to North or South

Penn Station will need to be expanded either to the north or south to handle the doubling of capacity that will be needed in the decade ahead, according to the railroads that use it.

The three railroads–the MTA’s Long Island Railroad, NJ Transit and Amtrak– announced this conclusion based on a feasibility study they commissioned of proposals to increase the station’s capacity within its current footprint from 31st to 33d streets and seventh to ninth avenues.

“This study looked at what can we do to get more capacity out of Penn Station within the boundaries of Penn Station [with] no additional property,” said Petra Messick, who supervises Amtrak’s capital plans for Penn Station and the routes in and out of it. “We looked at two alternatives. Two variations of each. We found they did not meet the project goals. So next, we are going to look beyond the footprint of Penn Station. Physically, we are going to expand our purview and look at acquiring property to expand capacity.”

The study, by rail consultant Foster Nichols, was a blow to preservationists and neighborhood activists who have been fighting a physical expansion of the station, arguing that Amtrak–which owns the station–and the two commuter railroads can get the needed increase in service by changing their operations to run trains through Penn Station more efficiently.

Among other things, through running would require a widening of Penn Station’s notoriously narrow platforms. Nichols examined two different ways to do this and concluded that neither worked.

“There is no combination of through-running tracks and platforms within the footprint of the existing station that can meet the operational needs and still be constructed without massive and unacceptable disruption to service,” Nichols concluded.

He also looked at building a ten track lower level to Penn Station, a la Grand Central, and concluded that would not work either.

“It has been found that achieving the needed doubling of trans-Hudson capacity and accommodating regional metro service entirely within the envelop of existing Penn Station is not feasible,” Amtrak and the commuter railroads reported. “So, it will be necessary to evaluate the construction of an expansion of Penn Station beyond its existing footprint.”

The most widely discussed version of such an expansion would involve the demolition of the block immediately south of the station, sometimes referred to as Block 780, although the railroad officials insisted no decision had been made. Documents released by the railroads said they would examine expansion both north and south of the current station.

“Our leadership is very interested in the question: do we have to acquire property?” Messick said at a news conference releasing the consultant’s report. “Do we have to make these investments outside of the station? Can we get more capacity out of through running? So, I would say that we gave it a very close look. That’s why this analysis has been so long in coming. We haven’t said anything for months and months, although through-running advocates have made their case, because we wanted to get it right and we wanted to give it the time that it deserves.”

Messick rejected a suggestion that the study was merely an effort to show the railroads were complying with environmental review requirements to examine alternatives.

“No, I do not think this was just a fancy way to fend off lawsuits,” she said. “I think we gave it a very serious look. Unfortunately, it is a very challenging, constrained environment to get additional train capacity.”

One of those constraints is the 1000 columns that hold up the structures above the tracks and platforms, including Madison Square Garden, the office building at 2 Penn Plaza, the Farley Post Office Building and even the remnants of the original Penn Station, which was torn down in the 1960’s as its builder, the Pennsylvania Railroad, descended into bankruptcy.

There has been a movement to move Madison Square Garden, and even proposals to remove 2 Penn Plaza, which its owner, Vornado Realty, recently renovated. Vornado presumably would not be eager to do this, but it did recently tear down an equally large building, the Pennsylvania Hotel, immediately across the street.

Nichols said he had not specifically studied whether moving either or both of those structures might make either a lower level or a through running plan feasible.

“It’s a matter of degrees and I’m not the structural engineer,” he said. “It would be probably incrementally easier and maybe quicker if the arena were gone. And the office building were gone. It’s still going to be disruptive and complicated. But the answer is, we don’t know. We didn’t actually look at it.”

One of the leading critics of expanding Penn Station, Samuel Turvey of ReThinkNYC, said the work by the Railroads and their consultant were inadequate.

“We need a bona fide independent review to assess the capacity needs at Penn Station and the capacity increases that can be brought forward by any number of through running plans including those of ReThinkNYC,” Turvey said.

He noted that the Port Authority had used an independent panel to forge a consensus with the neighborhood on a plan to rebuild the Bus Terminal, eight blocks north of Penn Station.

The report from the railroads did not discuss the costs of the plans examined and rejected. Nor did it discuss the costs of expanding the station or how the railroads would acquire property around the existing station for the expansion.

Much of the neighborhood has been incorporated into a state redevelopment plan, known as the GPP, which would allow the state to condemn and take property and avoid the city’s zoning and land use process.

Presumably those questions would be examined in the study of expanding the station that the railroads say they are now embarking on. “We are not done here we are just starting,” Messick said.

The railroads have also created group of office holders, developers, unions and civic groups to advise on plans for the future of the station.

Turvey noted that the Bus Terminal renovation was proceeding under city zoning rules and process. He continued to argue the expansion of Penn Station was wasteful, destructive and unnecessary.

“The Railroad reports have vacillated and completely missed the mark when it comes to evaluating the capacity a conversion to through running at Penn Station would bring,” he said in an email to supporters. “ReThinkNYC believes its plan can fully generate the 48 trains per hour called for by the Railroads (and perhaps 52 trains per hour if certain switching practices are adopted) and even add 6 trains per hour to the LIRR for good measure.”

The issue of expanding Penn Station will be brought to a head by the completion in the next decade of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, the first since the Pennsylvania Railroad built its original North River Tunnel in 1910.

The new tunnel will make it possible to double service under the river from 24 to 48 trains per hour.

Jeremy Colangelo-Bryan, Chief Planner for NJ TRANSIT, said all of that capacity will be needed. The disruption of Covid has been temporary, he said.

“It perhaps pushed some of our projected demand numbers out a little bit further,” he explained. “But even when we look at the situation now we are essentially back at ‘normal’ any number of days of the week.”

He said in the end, the disruptions of Covid would resemble episodes like September 11 and Super Storm Sandy.

“We’ve always come back and we don’t see any reason why in a post-Covid world that wouldn’t happen again,” He said. “We do see trains that are essentially as full as they were before. Which, by the way, is probably too full. Because we would like to be able to provide a seat to every person who gets on our train to take a trip into New York.”