Post-Cuomo Penn Station Updates Could Move Project Forward

As Justin Davidson reports in Curbed, the long-awaited upgrade to New York's Penn Station could soon inch forward, with Governor Kathy Hochul promising a renovation "as soon as the necessary environmental review and assorted other approvals are complete, and when the money starts to flow from private investment in an office market that may or may not shake off its pandemic-induced torpor, and if Hochul wins reelection or her plan isn’t revised out of existence by her successor," a daunting series of hurdles for a project that has languished for years.

[T]he latest iteration pulls back slightly on the imperial city [former governor] Cuomo had envisioned for the area surrounding Penn Station, cutting some height and bulk from the forest of ten new towers. It makes nearly a third of the megaproject’s 1,800 apartments permanently affordable. New entrances will make the station more porous, and the surrounding streets will become more parklike and pedestrian, less like the fume-choked canyons they are now.

Last December, transit advocates welcomed the opening of the Moynihan Train Hall as a positive–but insufficient–step toward the full renovation of the station, which has not been remodeled since 1968. To significantly improve service, advocates say, Penn Station needs additional tracks and platforms and new tunnels, part of a project labeled Gateway that would increase Penn Station's capacity and accommodate the growing number of commuters that pass through it.