Amtrak claims it needs to double the number of trains from New Jersey to Penn Station to meet booming ridership projections—48 trains an hour instead of the current 24. They admit that they haven’t figured out how to do that yet. But they are set on destroying a block filled with affordable homes, local businesses, and historic buildings in New York for a $16 to $17 billion underground station to benefit New Jersey commuters.
Transit reporter Nolan Hicks writes in Curbed that they will never double the number of trains from New Jersey unless they spend some $2.5 billion for a second Portal Bridge in New Jersey. The current Portal Bridge is being replaced at some $2.4 billion, but it’s not being expanded. So there is no increased capacity.
Hicks says the Governors of New York and New Jersey, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg should be leading the charge to break this choke point and fund a second bridge. But, he notes, they aren’t in charge. Amtrak is. “The bureaucrats there,” he writes, “unchecked by effective oversight, are far more interested in empire building.”
Hicks also says Amtrak’s own documents show plans to build Penn South as early as 2011. The documents state the reason for a new station is to give each railroad at Penn Station—Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and the Long Island Rail Road—its own “semi-independent facilities.”
Hicks says internal plans by the MTA and NJ Transit “offer a real chance to improve the efficiency of the complex without building a new next door potentially getting within spitting distance of the 48-train-per-hour target and doing it for approximately $10 billion less than this Amtrak Death Star would cost.”
Funding for the railroads is about to become a whole lot harder to get, he maintains, and each dollar received is going to have to be squeezed as hard as possible to deliver maximum benefit. “We need the second span, and a cheaper Penn Station plan can only help make that happen.”
So Amtrak has always preferred to sacrifice Block 780 south of Penn rather than encourage cooperation among the rival railroads. Their recent report basically told them what they wanted to hear.
The plans for the NJ Transit station, and whatever they are doing at Penn itself, are not funded. There is still time to save the block and improve transit.
We renew our call for an independent review to determine if capacity at Penn can be increased by additional through-running, which would eliminate any need for destroying Block 780. When are elected officials going to stand up to Amtrak to ensure that the billions of taxpayer dollars they demand will be well spent and that we get the modern transit station we deserve?
More than 2000 persons have signed our petition asking for an independent review at Penn. If you haven’t done so already, join them now.