Controversial Urban Design Opinion: Train Stations Should Have Benches Where The Fucking Trains Are
Should a train station have readily accessible places for people to sit? For anyone who has taken a train, or a bus, or really just participated in society a little bit recently, the answer to this question might seem very clear. But on Wednesday, it apparently stumped the head of the country's largest public transportation system.
While briefing reporters about the Penn Station redesign, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber was essentially asked whether it would be shaped in the image of Moynihan Train Hall—the Amtrak/LIRR station that debuted in 2020, and infamously has no places for people to sit in the main atrium.
Should large train halls have benches? “It’s an abstract question," sez MTA chairman Lieber. "We’re in a different era and the key issue is circulation.” Comes after the MTA board approved a design contract for the Penn overhaul, Lieber said it could emulate Moynihan
"Abstract"? I guess, if you're talking about a hypothetical train station privately owned and operated by a tycoon named Shitheel Peoplehater, who decides to use his immense power and wealth to build a train station in the most densely populated place in North America, and then chooses to treat the people in it like absolute garbage by making them stand or sit on the floor to wait for their train.
