This week's journey. The subway station emergency exit doors lock now; Gov. Hochul doesn't regret her deployment of federal troops into the city; The best time to hit the road for Labor Day weekend, and more.
Can Trump give Penn Station the Operation Warp Speed treatment?
President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which launched in 2020 after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraged a public-private partnership with pharmaceutical companies to develop, manufacture and distribute a vaccine in record time.
The initiative received bipartisan praise, and has since been widely cited as an example of government acting quickly in the face of a crisis.
Five years later, the Trump administration hopes to lean on a similar playbook to rapidly renovate Penn Station after years of stops and starts by New York officials. On Wednesday, federal transportation officials said they plan to begin construction in 2027, an aggressive timeline to overhaul the nation’s busiest train station.
“We are going to move at the speed of Trump, this is not going to be a 20- to 30-year project,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during a press conference at the dilapidated transit hub Wednesday. “This is about, ‘How do we move this more quickly and more beautifully through the process so it's not your grandkids that are going to enjoy the work we’re doing now?’ You all will enjoy this great project.”
Duffy’s visit came four months after he announced that the federally-run Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, would take control of the reconstruction project from the state-run MTA (For years the MTA developed several plans for Penn Station that went nowhere.)
“I've been given a very clear mandate. I have a very clear instruction that there is a spade to go in the ground by the end of 2027,” said Byford, who was so popular among riders during his last tenure in New York he was given the nickname “Train Daddy” — a moniker Duffy repeated Wednesday.
“I would not have taken this job on if I didn't think that that was possible,” Byford said.
Previous plans to renovate Penn Station include one floated in 2021 by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. His vision aimed to fund part of the effort with revenue from new skyscrapers built by the developer Vornado, which owns much of the real estate around the station.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul took office after Cuomo resigned amid a dozen accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment, she pitched a scaled-back arrangement with the real estate firm that also faltered. In the meantime, the MTA never delivered an updated timeline — and never advanced its effort towards a crucial environmental review.
Multiple private developers have since proposed plans which didn’t appear to have gained any traction.
But that could all change now. Byford is not looking for some back of the napkin sketches. He said he plans to partner with private developers to restore Penn Station to its original grandeur.
A similar approach was used for the reconstruction of LaGuardia Airport, where the Port Authority leaned on private airline companies to pay for much of the work. Once compared to a “third-world country” by President Joe Biden, LaGuardia is now receiving international acclaim.
“ I want credible designs, credibly backed by funding proposals,” Byford said.
Sam Turvey with the group ReThink NYC said starting construction in 2027 could be possible, but warned the project hinges on two key decisions: What to do about Madison Square Garden, which sits atop Penn Station; and whether the station will allow through-running, which would combine NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road operations so their trains don’t stop and turn around once they reach Midtown.
“ A lot of this can pop into place sooner rather than later,” Turvey said.
He said international firms like ASTM and local groups like the nonprofit Grand Penn Community Alliance have been polishing Penn Station renovation plans for years. ASTM’s pitch would leave the Garden in place, but fit the station with new entrances and headhouses. The Grand Penn plan would move the famed arena across Seventh Avenue, and build a new Penn Station with “classical” architectural elements.
“It's still ambitious, even with that being said, frankly, some of these groups have been waiting on the sidelines for years for the opportunity to submit something,” Turvey said.
But can anyone move at “warp speed” on a major infrastructure project in one of the busiest parts of the country? Trump knows better than most how to build in Manhattan, but will he be impatient with the project? Or will having Byford, a veteran transit professional known for leading complicated transit agencies, change the equation?
“We just can't predict because once you start working all kinds of potential new things could occur,” said New York University professor Mitchell Moss, who specialized in public infrastructure.
“ We've had so many press conferences about Penn Station that you got to treat this as a good one because you have a cabinet official and you have federal money,” he said. “ They're not promising what they're gonna do, but they're promise to do something. That's great.”
Curious Commuter
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“What is the strategy around the new emergency exit doors locking? … I just helped an elderly woman lift her shopping cart over the turnstiles because after holding it for 30 seconds it still didn't unlock. What's the deal? And how long do you really have to hold the door for it to open?”
- Angie from Brooklyn
The MTA has described emergency gates at subway stations as a “superhighway” of fare evasion. For that reason, the transit agency added equipment that imposes a 15-second delay on gates opening at more than 130 stations as a way to discourage people from opening them.
The slam gates allow the subways to comply with building and fire codes that require a quick means of egress in case of an emergency. The MTA said the delayed opening remains in compliance with those codes. But there are still many riders, like wheelchair users and people in walkers, who can’t use the regular turnstiles and rely on the gates. MTA officials said all the subway emergency gates are working as intended. They said if a rider encounters a gate that simply won’t open, even after 15 seconds, they should file a complaint through the MTA app or call 511.
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We're also talking about...
No Way-mo? Street safety advocates are trying to get the city’s transportation department to revoke approval for a pilot program allowing self-driving taxis (with a human behind the wheel) on city streets.
“The future of transportation is public transit that runs reliably and regularly, and active transportation that's available to everybody. It’s not cars.”
- Michael Sutherland, a policy researcher with Open Plans
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