New York’s overburdened Pennsylvania Station could handle as many as eight additional trains per hour during peak commuting times, if improvements were made at the track level to get passengers on and off trains faster, a federal study found.
The study, conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration and released Wednesday, concluded that proposed changes could increase Penn Station’s capacity to as many as 32 trains per hour during the morning rush and 30 per hour in the evening rush. The station, largely unchanged since the 1960s, can handle 24 trains per hour at peak times now.
The changes could be part of the $8 billion transformation of Penn that the Trump administration is planning. That plan is focused on upgrading the shabby state of the underground station, which sits beneath Madison Square Garden. But transportation planners also aim to provide commuters some relief from Penn’s notoriously crowded conditions.
“Whether you are a daily commuter or a tourist, Penn Station can and should work better for you,” Sean P. Duffy, the transportation secretary, said. “That means reducing frustrating delays and increasing capacity.”
The department provided $200 million in funding toward an overhaul of Penn scheduled to get underway before the end of 2027. Amtrak, which owns the station, chose a master developer in May. The findings of the report will help inform the master developer’s design work, the department said.
The proposed changes would not involve expanding the footprint of the station, which occupies two blocks of Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, or adding any tracks. But they would include extending three of its 11 platforms. Each platform would also get at least one additional staircase or escalator to improve access between trains and the station’s concourses above.
The study estimated that those changes could reduce the amount of time trains spend in the station by more than two minutes, from more than eight minutes now. That reduction in “dwell time” would create space for the additional trains, it said.
“When we say we’re going to bring a world-class station to New Yorkers, it’s not just about design and layout,” said Andy Byford, the Amtrak executive managing the overhaul. Mr. Byford, who formerly ran New York City’s subway and bus network, said the study would help Amtrak achieve its goals of increasing concourse capacity, making the station fully accessible and allowing it to operate more safely and efficiently.
While Amtrak owns the station, its primary users are two commuter services, the Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit. Each of those railroads brings tens of thousands of riders into the city each weekday morning and carries them home at night. But the services do not cross into each other’s territory.
The study found that the proposed changes also would allow for the introduction of regional service, on a limited basis, by running trains through Penn between cities in New Jersey and points east or north of the city. The Federal Railroad Administration is conducting a more thorough study of that concept, which is known as through running. That study is scheduled to be completed by 2028.
The post How Penn Station Could Run More Trains appeared first on New York Times.
