A new report assessing future plans for Penn Station proposes the primary way to increase service on the railways is physically expanding its capacity to install new tracks, which would likely involve tearing down a Midtown street.
The analysis, which was published Wednesday and written by consultants and commissioned by Amtrak, NJ Transit and the MTA, concluded that constructing a new set of tracks beneath the existing ones at Penn Station to meet the goal of improving service would not be feasible.
“The study really aims to answer the question: ‘Can we achieve the capacity goals of the Penn Station Capacity Expansion Project and the Gateway Program within the existing footprint of Penn Station?’” Petra Messick, senior program director at the Gateway Program at Amtrak, said at a briefing with reporters, Gothamist reported. “Spoiler alert, we cannot.”
It also proposed that “through-running,” an idea popularized by transit advocates that would consolidate NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road service so each railroad wouldn’t have to stop and turn around at Penn Station, would also not be sufficient. According to the report, the through-running option would require widening all the station’s existing platforms, and would only expand the station’s capacity to 40 trains per hour.
This leaves two possibilities for increasing service, which would be adding tracks to either the north or south of Penn Station. Amtrak officials have for more than a decade pitched the latter option, which would construct a new “Penn South” station as part of the Gateway Program, requiring the demolition of a parcel known as “Block 780” south of 31st Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
The report’s release also comes as construction is currently underway on the $16 billion Gateway project to build a new Hudson River tunnel running between Manhattan and New Jersey. Once completed, Amtrak’s goal is to double the number of trains Penn Station is capable of handling in an hour from 24 to 48.
In 2019, New York and New Jersey both passed legislation that would allow for southern expansion to be included in the Gateway Program, pending an agreement between the governors of both states as well as Amtrak. Now, the new Hudson River tunnels under construction through the project are designed to run beneath 30th Street, just south of the existing station.
Officials from the rail agencies noted during the briefing that plans for expanding Penn Station are “advancing in parallel” with the MTA’s plans to upgrade the existing Penn Station, however it’s still unclear how much an expansion of Penn Station would approximately cost.
