Gov. Hochul can finally fix Penn Station mess
- Rachel Miller
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
April 17, 2025
OPINION
BY LIAM BLANK & ROBERT PREVIDI
"Gov. Hochul has stopped a massive, controversial plan to expand Penn Station by demolishing the adjoining Block 780. While saving a neighborhood is good news, stopping that flawed plan isn’t enough. It’s time to tackle the real reason Penn Station is so chaotic and frustrating: no single entity is truly in charge.
Penn Station feels like three different train companies operating in the same cramped space, barely talking to each other. That’s because, essentially, they are.
Amtrak technically owns the station and runs trains connecting cities up and down the East Coast. But the MTA runs the Long Island Rail Road bringing commuters from the east, and soon Metro-North trains from the north. And NJTransit brings in waves of commuters from the west. Each has its own goals, its own schedules, its own tickets, and its own way of doing things.
This isn’t how it always was. When the original, grand Pennsylvania Station opened in 1910, one company — the Pennsylvania Railroad — designed, built, and ran the whole show. It had a clear vision. Today’s setup, with competing priorities, leads directly to the problems passengers face every day: confusing signs, difficulty transferring between trains, schedules that don’t line up, and a generally stressful experience
This management muddle doesn’t just inconvenience riders; it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars. For instance, there’s a common-sense idea called “through-running” — letting NJT trains continue straight through Penn Station to Long Island or Connecticut, and vice-versa, instead of hitting a dead end. This would free up precious platform space, reduce crowding, and create seamless regional travel.
But with three separate agencies guarding their turf, ideas that benefit the whole system get stuck. Agencies plan upgrades for their own lines without coordinating, sometimes even creating new conflicts. The recently halted expansion plan, despite costing billions, was pushed forward with major flaws because there was no single authority looking out for the best interests of the entire network, just individual agency wish lists.
Other major world cities faced similar challenges and found a solution: unified management. In London, one organization (Transport for London) coordinates the Underground, buses, and commuter rail. Everything works together — schedules, fares, information — making it much easier to get around, and leading to a huge jump in people using public transport.
Paris, Berlin, and Toronto have done similar things, proving that one coordinated system works far better, even with different companies actually running the trains. They realized that a connected network needs connected leadership....'
