Hochul Tries to Make Nice with Trump over Penn Sta. As Critic Pushes for More Input on Plan

Governor Kathy Hochul said she wants a new Penn Station for commuters that is “as magnificent” as Amtrak’s Moynihan station, but a principal advocate replied that if that’s the goal the current process is way off track, so to speak.

Hochul described her ambitions for the cramped and crowded station to a Crain’s New York Business breakfast, explaining that she had shared them with President-elect Trump and believed “we can work together on some significant projects” including the rejuvenation of Penn Station.

“People think we are doing nothing on Penn station, except you’re wrong,” she told the breakfast. “We are continuing to move ahead on Penn Station. Because that to me is an eyesore. It’s a blight. It’s a mark on our identity. And why don’t we have something as magnificent as Moynihan station greeting visitors from all over?”

She described Trump, who will now control Amtrak as well as the Federal Railway Administration, as understanding “how important the New York economy is to the nation” as well as that “these infrastructure projects cannot be ignored any longer.”

She described the rehabilitation of the subways and of Penn Station as “legacy projects for all of us.”

But a principal advocate for a new and better Penn Station says that the first step is a new process to reconcile all the complicated and competing interests.

“The scope of the entire project should be embodied in the process and crystal-clear lines of accountability drawn up,” said the advocate, Samuel Turvey, chair of ReThinkNYC.

The current process, he noted, is divided among the repair of the current station, the expansion of the station’s capacity and the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood. The repair is under the command of the MTA, the possible expansion is being directed by Amtrak and the redevelopment is a project known as the GPP, led by the state’s Empire State Development Corporation.

“The process should not be siloed or otherwise functionally fragmented,” Turvey complained, “and dominated by agencies or railroads or their preferred vendors and consultants who have elevated the evasion of legally required public and community input to an art form.”

The entire effort should be put in the hands of “a person of substance, integrity and experience,” said Turvey, renewing his proposals that that person should be Andy Byford, former head of the New York City Transit Authority, who is now in charge of building high speed rail for Amtrak.

“In the absence of a legitimate governance process, chaos reigns and we are witnessing anomalous results like the Railroads all conspiring to needlessly expand Penn Station and then segment it into separate operations to perpetuate each railroad’s bureaucratic fiefdom,” Turvey alleged. “They insist on a segmented station even as they claim to be unified and to work well together when it is perfectly obvious that this is far from the case. It is like someone saying they have a great marriage and offering a freshly minted separation agreement as proof.”

Turvey also called for a “bona fide independent review” by world class transit experts to settle debates about whether the station could accomodate an expansion of service in the next decade within its present footprint or by expanding to the north or south, which Amtrtak and the commuter railroads say will be needed.

The Station Working Advisory Group (SWAG) established recently by Amtrak to consider expansion proposals does not qualify as independent, Turvey said. He was not appointed to this SWAG, nor where several other Amtrak critics and experts.

Instead, a group of independent engineers and rail operators should decide if a doubling of capacity can be handled within the current envelop of the station, as Turvey’s group has argued, or “we really do need to demolish a swathe of Midtown West – specifically Block 780, which runs from West 31st Street to West 30th street between seventh and eighth avenues, as the railroads maintain.”

He also argued that Hochul should scuttle the GPP and “schedule the promised design competition” for outside groups to submit ideas that could compete with the MTA’s own plans for rebuilding the station.

Noting that Hochul had “professed to hope for a plan that puts Penn Station on the same par as Moynihan Station,” Turvey said that “at least three firms have responded to this appeal and look forward to the promised opportunity to compete.”

In a newsletter to his followers, Turvey included renderings of the three proposals and juxtaposed them with the MTA’s own offerings, which he argued was pale by comparison.