Penn Station is no longer New York's problem!
The Trump Administration decided to take sole ownership of one of biggest infrastructure planning quagmires in the country on Thursday by icing out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from the much-debated rebuild the transit hub, a clear shot at the MTA as the feds continue their war on the agency.
In a statement that denigrated the country's biggest transit operator, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean "Two-Stop" Duffy announced that he would entrust the project entirely to Amtrak, which can barely keep its power grid running between New York and Washington D.C.
“President Trump has made it clear: the days of reckless spending and blank checks are over,” Duffy said. “New York City deserves a Penn Station that reflects America’s greatness and is safe and clean. The MTA’s history of inefficiency, waste, and mismanagement also meant that a new approach is needed."
(Say what you will about the MTA, it keeps its wires up and has a fraction of the cancellations of NJ Transit).
The release from the Department of Transportation buried a lot of crucial context and news about the future of Penn Station beneath hyperbolic words aimed at New York state's leadership.
First, it ignored the history and politics that played a crucial role in shaping both programs — Penn Reconstruction and Penn Expansion — for the better and worse. Amtrak is cash-starved and the smallest operator at Penn Station, though it does own the station. New York politicians are interested in improving the existing facility for the MTA's Long Island Rail Road and subway passengers, but has little interest in the expansion because it recently built a massive new station beneath Grand Central Terminal, which relieved its share of the crowding.
Meanwhile, New Jersey and Amtrak are jointly interested in running more trains into Penn Station, but have insisted on a major expansion of the station to make that happen instead of improving the existing station's efficiency by jointly managing their schedules. The result was an arrangement in which Amtrak would functionally give the MTA a free hand over reconstruction of the existing Penn Station in trade for New York's support for the station expansion.
Second, the proposed reconstruction of Penn Station, which would be led by the MTA, was substantially smaller than the Amtrak-led effort to build a potential $16.7 billion southern annex to the complex, which was known as Penn Expansion. A DOT memo sent to Amtrak suggested that Penn Expansion as it was currently envisioned may be all-but-dead, too, if not officially killed outright.
The Federal Railroad Administration "will work with Amtrak to assess and evaluate regional service options to identify improvements with the goal of optimizing service and recognizing fiscal constraints," said the memo, hinting that the feds may be using the possibility of through-running — having the railroads share routes and tracks to boost Penn Station's efficiency — to send the whole project back to square one.
(Gov. Hochul indicated last month she was in favor of downsizing the Penn Expansion plans, which would have required the demolition of all or parts of three blocks of Midtown Manhattan.)
Third, it's unclear how Duffy, and by extension Trump, will finance their Penn Station redo. The only identified major funding sources under the previous arrangement came from New York — via the MTA's budget and the proposed construction of new skyscrapers — and were to be dedicated to the station's reconstruction.
Hochul said that Duffy's announcement means that New York will no longer put forward the $1.3 billion it had previously earmarked to Penn Station. So that's why we depicted Duffy holding a gun to his own head in the lead image; he's made himself hostage.
“In multiple meetings with President Trump, I requested that the federal government fund the long-overdue overhaul of Penn Station," Hochul said in a statement that was so drenched in sarcasm that it's amazing that the words could still be read on the paper. "Clearly that effort has been successful, and I want to thank the President and Secretary Duffy for taking on the sole responsibility to deliver the beautiful new $7-billion station that New Yorkers deserve.
"This is a major victory for New Yorkers, and the use of federal funds will save New York taxpayers $1.3 billion that would have otherwise been necessary for this project," she added.
(Less sarcastic was Assembly Member Tony Simone's prognosis: "I am beyond skeptical that this federal government can manage a project of this size by seizing control while simultaneously slashing funding." And Council Member Erik Bottcher was equally unimpressed: "The Trump Administration's decision to strip New York of its leadership role in the Penn Station ... is a direct insult to the people of New York City. This is not a partnership. It's a power grab. Let's be clear: Donald Trump has gone out of his way to hurt New York City for years. From slashing critical funding to attacking our values, he has consistently shown contempt for the city that raised him. ... If the federal government truly wants to help, it should be working with us, not around us.")
Duffy's move came amid an escalating series of efforts by the former Fox Business Network anchor and MTV reality television figure to target New York's sprawling subway system, which carries more people daily than every airline in America put together.
He has repeatedly denigrating the MTA's trains as crime-ridden. And most important, he has attempted to revoke the federal approvals for congestion pricing, claiming that it discriminates against low-income New Yorkers, even though virtually all of them use transit ... the same transit that congestion pricing is funding.
— with Dave Colon and photo illustration by Gersh Kuntzman
In other news from a slow day:
- Regarding Penn Station, everyone weighed in, too. (NYDN, NY Post, NY Times, amNY, Gothamist)
- There was a small, but positive, court ruling in favor of congestion pricing yesterday. (NY Times)
- Mayor Adams (through his lawyers) finally said something nice about the congestion pricing tolls that is doing more to make the city livable than anything he's done. (Gothamist)
- It's enough to drive you into the drink. (Patch)
