Penn Station Can Handle the Load:
The recently funded Gateway Program, which centers around building two new rail tunnels under the Hudson to connect New Jersey to Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, will enable a massive increase in rail passenger traffic. To handle this growth, ETA has continually advocated for through-running trains from New Jersey to Queens and beyond. Through-running not only makes better use of the region's existing infrastructure, it would also create new services that would transform transportation across the region.
In a recent study, however, Amtrak has claimed that through-running is impossible in the current Penn Station footprint, and that the region instead needs to spend $16.7 billion to demolish a block of Midtown Manhattan and build Penn Expansion. This project adds 7–12 stub-end tracks, maintaining an antiquated operational status quo. ETA's own analysis shows that Amtrak's report is simply incorrect. It builds on faulty assumptions and poor understanding of how through-running rail systems operate across the world. Even the separate $7 billion Penn Reconstruction project to rebuild the track and concourse levels within the station’s footprint, while perhaps desirable for passenger experience, is unnecessary for through-running in our analysis.
ETA's analysis, based on an examination of best practices from peer cities across the globe, shows that today's Penn Station can handle the ridership that Gateway will bring if the region simply changes the way it operates its trains—and it can do so without spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.
