This Penn Station plan is a train wreck

We all agree that Penn Station is in dire need of repairs, and upgrades. The busiest train station in the Northern Hemisphere is grossly inadequate, unsafe and overcapacity. Buried under a skyscraper and a sports arena, the station feels more like a rat hole than a first-class transit hub.

So, to the rescue, comes a state-sponsored plan to fix Penn. But in lieu of Penn improvements, the plan calls for a massive real estate deal: 10 towers, 18 million square feet, six bulldozed city blocks.

If you are scratching your head asking what a huge real-estate deal has to do with fixing Penn Station, you are not alone. The governor is no alchemist; she cannot turn office towers into train tracks. On Monday, the city’s Independent Budget Office issued a scathing report that underscores what critics had been saying: The plan is opaque and gives no details or clarity on the funding solvency or even its need. The report notes: “many key questions remain unanswered under the state’s current proposal, particularly around the construction cost, timing, financing, and risk management of the projects.” In short, the plan could keep taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars, à la Hudson Yards.

What the plan won’t do is create a dignified above-ground train station with a robust public realm and civic purpose. It won’t enlarge the platforms, or improve capacity. It will not run trains faster or more frequently. Penn will remain in the sub-cellar of Madison Square Garden and commuters will continue to knock their heads against the gloomy ceilings of the squalid station. The chorus of opposition from all directions indicates that there is little to no public purpose to the state plan..

So how did this plan come to be? While the state argues that the plan is needed to generate funding to finance improvements at the station, the infusion of federal funding now available renders this rationale obsolete. Many have speculated that the real purpose may have to do with the main corporate beneficiary of the project. Vornado Realty Trust, a publicly traded company, is the majority landowner and the single corporation to benefit from the plan. Conveniently, the company has entered into a cost-sharing agreement with the state on most of the consultants working on the project, including Ernst & Young, a financial consultant. This is tantamount to the U.S. surgeon general basing its recommendations on smoking on tobacco companies’ paid health reports.

On Monday, Rep. Tom Suozzi addressed a letter to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of

Transportation asking for a prompt investigation into whether Vornado may have exerted undue influence. In 2017, Steve Roth, Vornado’s CEO, was an adviser to President Donald Trump; Suozzi suggests he may have used his influence to halt the Gateway Tunnel project under the Hudson River, so that the state would remain reliant on the company’s new developments to fund improvements.

After a vociferous public hearing on the state plan, at which more than 500 people signed up to speak mostly against the plan, questions and concerns remain unaddressed. Decisions surrounding this proposal are not being made in an open, honest and transparent fashion. There are actually no checks and balances in the approval process. The governor and her appointees are the sole powers in charge.

The plan has been denounced by pretty much everybody: state and city elected officials, the City Planning Commission, IBO, civic groups, community boards, block associations, transit advocates, good government groups, residents, businesses, property owners, musicians and artists who work or live on Music Street, aka W. 30th St. (one of the blocks slated for condemnation). The Pope himself will be asked to weigh in: The Holy See owns a beautifully historic church within the bulldozers’ path and the Vatican will have to bless the takeover as it is common practice for the Catholic Church when disposing of real estate. It’s unclear, however, how much power his Holiness would have to oppose the plan.

The state should retire the fatally flawed proposal and decouple it from the only proposal that matters: improving Penn Station.

Civic and infrastructure advocates have a plan to improve Penn Station, increase its capacity and give it the grand civic presence that New York deserves. Through-running, the widely used transportation modality that runs trains through a station rather than using it as a terminal, would provide the necessary capacity increase. It’s used in Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul and the list goes on. Many plans have been presented to give the station an aboveground and dignified presence that removes the scar tissue from past mistakes. Most are very meritorious. But we should start with function and then follow with form.

At this point in time, we need trains, not towers.