The Governor’s Penn Station Project sailed through the Empire State Development Board (ESD) last week with no dissent. But the State Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) also must approve the plan and will vote this Wednesday.
If you still have any doubts about how terrible the plan is, please read a recent City Journal article that spells it out clearly. Then please email the PACB Members.
Tell them the Plan’s finances don’t add up. Ask them to have the courage to Vote NO.
Senator Leroy Comrie
comrie@nysenate.gov
Assembly Member Amy Paulin
PaulinA@nyassembly.gov
Assembly Member Joseph M. Giglio
GiglioJ@nyassembly.gov
Governor Cuomo curbed the PACB’s powers after it voted against his plan to bring Amazon to Queens. The PACB must now focus on the finances of any plan it reviews. That should be enough to doom the Penn Plan. The City’s Independent Budget Office and the Citizens Budget Commission both question whether the plan will produce what the Governor claims it will. Both say the plan is too vague, lacking sufficient specifics.
There are also serious concerns about destroying blocks of Midtown filled with jobs, businesses, residents, office space, community services, and landmark quality buildings to build a second Hudson Yards of giant glass office towers. The plan overrides the City’s own zoning and land use procedures.
The plan does nothing to improve transit. It also would spend some $7 billion on modest changes to the current, underground station, ignoring that Madison Square Garden may have to move in the near future.
The PACB would be doing voters a service by killing the current plan. That would open the opportunity for a better one and save vibrant blocks of Midtown from needless destruction.