According to the new report, transit officials are canceling proposals to bring more lights to Penn Station’s alcoholic corridors – without moving to Madison Square Garden.
MTA exec Janno Libre on Friday presented two concepts for “city, state, community and advocacy leaders”. The Wall Street Journal reported
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Under a proposal, 40 percent of the upper level of the station would be eliminated – construction of a single-level facility with a 40-foot-high roof. Makeovers will be widened to make up for lost capacity.
The second concept would retain the upper level but create an atrium in a former area of Amtrak. The report states that both reforms will transform the station’s layout into a grid.
“You’re lost in this enclosed box,” Lieber told the WSJ. “What we want to do in either version is to open it.”
The Journal stated that Libre did not provide a cost estimate for any of the proposals. He reported that the refinancing of any Penn station could be funded as part of a $ 30 billion gateway program, including the construction of a new tunnel under the Hudson River.
Penn Station is owned by Amtrak, whose president told WSJ is working to develop a “consensus master plan” for the rail station, which served 600,000 people daily before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In January, Gov. Andrew Como announced plans to dramatically expand the footprint of the Long Island Railroad at the station, an entire block south of the station to make room for eight new tracks.
Critics say Cuomo’s Penn project – which includes plans for 10 new skyscrapers – is being pushed without oversight from the city or state legislature, The Post reported over the weekend.
Instead, the project is advised by a 13-member “Community Advisory Committee” – the group that listened to Libre’s presentation last week. A standardized process for public review of projects in the city – the project will not pass through the ULURP, or the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
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