What's in a name?
President Trump's reported refusal to release funding for the Gateway tunnel project unless officials rename Penn Station for him has heightened long-simmering concerns that New York and New Jersey will be strong-armed into forking over local tax dollars to pay for a costly rehab of the nation's largest transit hub.
The president's demand, first reported by Punchbowl News and subsequently confirmed by multiple outlets, explicitly linked federal funding for the now-halted Gateway Tunnel to slapping the president's name on Penn Station and Virginia's Dulles Airport — which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected outright.
But the demand still left government watchdogs wary of what Trump may try to do with the transit hub reconstruction, which Amtrak's Andy Byford has said will begin before Trump's current term is up.
"It's all about Trump, who is like the wandering eye of Sauron and cannot be resisted by any of his minions, including Byford," said Reinvent Albany Executive Director John Kaehny. "Unfortunately, that baleful glare is clearly fixed on Penn Station, per Trump's latest offer to unfreeze federal funds for Gateway if Penn is named after him."
The Gateway Tunnel project will connect to Penn Station, which is set to be renovated as part of a separate project currently led by Byford, a special adviser to Amtrak who previously ran New York City's subways and buses.
Byford has promoted the project as a "public-private partnership" in which one of three recently chosen bidders, all with ties to Trump, will have an opportunity to win a contract to build a new Penn Station.
The specter of "Trump Station" has loomed over the effort since October, when Byford made his first big public remarks on the project. Speaking at a New York Building Congress breakfast, Byford told the assembled contractors and other industry players that he wasn't worried about any opposition slowing down the project because "my trump card is the Trump card."
Byford also said that whichever winning bid made it through the bidding process would be brought in front of the president "to just make sure the White House is comfortable with the proposal we've made."
Since then Byford has gone back and forth on how much involvement the White House will actually have in the Penn reconstruction project. At a November appearance in front of the Association for A Better New York, Byford insisted he and only the Amtrak Board of Directors would select the contractor.
But at a recent appearance in front of the Citizens Budget Commission, Byford once again explicitly stated that he will ensure Trump approves of the winning bidder before Amtrak reveals their name in June.
"We will do briefings with the [Federal Railroad Administration], with the [U.S. Department of Transportation] and with the White House," Byford said late last month. "And the reason for that is because they will want to see the designs, because we will be seeking billions of dollars to help fund this thing."
At the same appearance, Byford made the nearly unbelievable claim that he was not aware of the Gateway project's status, even though the Gateway board said the day prior that the ongoing blockade of its funding threatened to halt work on the tunnel entirely.
The Gateway Development Corporation and the states of New York and New Jersey subsequently sued the Trump administration in an attempt to get the appropriated money flowing again, which does not augur well for any future Trump demands around Penn Station.
"The governor is completely focused on ending President Trump's illegal effort to withhold Gateway funding as soon as possible, which is why we are taking the administration to court this afternoon," Sean Butler, a spokesperson for Gov. Hochul, said in a statement to Streetsblog on Friday.
Any future Penn Station reconstruction will also depend on the MTA agreeing to go along with the winning bid. The agency is dealing with its own Trump hostage situation, with the administration holding up funding for the expansion of the Second Avenue subway, and also had to suffer through a year of delays on the environmental review for congestion pricing during Trump's first term.
"I’m thinking maybe a Trump waiting room is a more fitting tribute considering the time New Yorkers spend waiting for tax dollars sent to DC to make the way back to fund New York projects," said MTA Chief of Policy and External Relations John McCarthy.
The public will not know how the winning bidder is selected, or whether Trump will push for a different bidder altogether. All three finalists have links to the Trump administration. While Amtrak has said it will not release details on any of the proposed projects, or reveal the questions it asking developers to answer, two of the shortlisted projects have publicly known price tags that approach $10 billion.
One of the projects that Amtrak considered, from the construction company Halmar, carried a price tag of at least $8 billion due to the inclusion of a grand entrance on Eighth Avenue that require buying the Hulu Theater from MSG owner James Dolan and knocking the venue down.
A second project received support from the same team behind the Grand Penn Alliance, a group founded by Trump mega-donor Thomas Klingenstein. The project would involving bulldozing and replacing MSG, and building a street-level atrium around the existing Penn Station in its place. This would be very complicated and extremely expensive, and it would not materially change the functionality of Penn Station.
Which of these three projects is ultimately chosen could have serious implications for New Yorkers, because city and state residents will have to pay at least some of its price.
The public-private partnership governing Penn's reconstruction also requires that the winning developer finance whatever share of the project isn't funded by the federal government. Byford has promised to seek billions in loans and grants from the federal government to cover some of the bill — but the winning developer will have to borrow money, and thus incur future interest, to pay for the rest.
That same winning developer would then be able to recoup its investment and turn a profit by running Penn Station. Byford recently ruled out user fees, which are per-ticket surcharges on Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains that visit Penn Station. But that doesn't rule out annual payments by the tenant railroads themselves, and Byford has said that he expects to both New York City and New York State to subsidize the federally led project.
Trump's involvement is likely to stir conflict for years to come. That is why even Byford's admirers are beginning to wonder if the president will turn the new Penn Station into an expensive sideshow.
"With Trump playing a $16 billion vanity game around one major federal infrastructure project, it is clear he will do the same for Penn Station," said Assembly Member Tony Simone (D-Manhattan). "While I have faith in Andy Byford, if the final say is in the White House I think it will be very difficult to gain the public trust necessary for a successful project."
Amtrak did not respond to a request for comment.
