New Penn Station Entrance and Expansion of LIRR Concourse

[MNCRR9000]

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on September 6, 2018, announced Penn Station will now feature a new entrance at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue providing direct access to the Long Island Rail Road Main Concourse and the New York City Subway. The announcement also included the expansion of the Long Island Rail Road corridor at Penn Station to improve safety, security and passenger flow, as well as significant milestones in the on-time, on-budget construction of the Moynihan Train Hall. In addition, the Long Island Rail Road Main Concourse between 7th and 8th Avenues will be roughly doubled in size and the ceiling will be raised by up to 11 feet. The improvements are part of the Governor's overarching vision to completely remake this transportation hub located at the heart of the New York's regional rail network.

"For years there has been talk about transforming Penn Station, but no action, forcing New York's commuters and visitors to endure congested and potentially unsafe conditions for far too long," Governor Cuomo said. "The projects currently underway, including a new, state-of-the-art entrance, will not only turn Penn Station into a world-class transit hub, but they will ease the flow for riders and improve the overall passenger experience for all who pass through."

At the centerpiece of this transformation - Moynihan Train Hall - the structure for the midblock skylight is now complete. The Train Hall is slated for substantial completion by the end of 2020, and the Long Island Rail Road improvements will open in 2022 - when East Side Access and the Penn Station Metro-North Access projects are expected to come online.

LIRR Penn Station Concourse Improvements

The new entrance at 7th Avenue and 33rd Street will accommodate tens of thousands of LIRR passengers a day. The entrance is ideally located to improve visibility, safety, and circulation, and will allow thousands of subway riders easier access to the subway system. Brand new stairwells and a trio of new escalators will be constructed to improve the movement of passengers.

In addition, the LIRR Main Concourse will be widened from its current 30 feet to 57 feet to allow easier access to trains and reduce potentially dangerous crowding. The design has been further developed so that the Concourse will be 18 feet high all the way across the new 57-foot width, eliminating the 7 and 8-foot high areas that have made the station experience feel less spacious. Lighting will be improved, with ceilings raised and more intuitive wayfinding. LIRR customers will have new direct sight lines to track level and there will be additional retail and dining options in the revitalized Concourse as well.

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[Rockingham Racer]

I must be missing something. How does a new, state-of-the-art entrance turn Penn into a world class transit hub? Help!

[newkirk]

In addition, the Long Island Rail Road Main Concourse between 7th and 8th Avenues will be roughly doubled in size and the ceiling will be raised by up to 11 feet.

I guess the LIRR Concourse would be widened by moving the store fronts back a few feet or relocated them to Farley (Cuomo Mall).

As far as raising the ceiling, are wee talking skylights ?

[DogBert]

Lipstick on a pig.

[ExCon90]

Still, if the pig is all you have ...

[JamesRR]

Makes sense - the eastern end of the Connecting Concourse seems to beg for an exit, rather than ending at a massive wall. And opening that concourse will help, as it's often wall-to-wall passengers, especially when people empty out of Tracks 20/21.

[hs3730]

I don't think they're planning on removing too many vendors from the concourse, due to this line later in the press release:

LIRR customers will have new direct sight lines to track level and there will be additional retail and dining options in the revitalized Concourse as well.

Now the direct sight lines, that sounds almost like a step back towards the original station. Too bad it will be only for the LIRR tracks.

[geico]

Where did the Cuomo get the money tree to pay for all of this????

[newkirk]

geico wrote: Where did the Cuomo get the money tree to pay for all of this????

Check you wallet !

[Teutobergerwald]

Like all his infrastructure projects, the funding is murky....

[EuroStar]

Cuomo talked about this years ago (at least 2) when the biding for the transformation of the Post Office was going on. This is just a rehash due to the elections. See, for all the time that has passed, they still do not have a final design concept, much less funding. They are still toying with the way the entrance should look. The Governor might get the Empire State Development Corp to finance some modification in that long concourse, but the full thing is unlikely to happen because of ESA. Once ESA opens in 2023 or whenever, the LIRR ridership to Penn will get cut down by half and with the crowding gone the impetus to do something will be gone too. Let's not forget that the opening of the new Moynihan station will also cut on the crowding, even though it will not be by much given that the location of the Farley Post office is further west than most people will want to walk.

[jlr3266]

LIRR ridership cut in half after ESA? Not likely. If a second station just for the convenience was the point of ESA, it would never have been started.

[rr503]

Cuomo talked about this years ago (at least 2) when the biding for the transformation of the Post Office was going on. This is just a rehash due to the elections. See, for all the time that has passed, they still do not have a final design concept, much less funding. They are still toying with the way the entrance should look. The Governor might get the Empire State Development Corp to finance some modification in that long concourse, but the full thing is unlikely to happen because of ESA. Once ESA opens in 2023 or whenever, the LIRR ridership to Penn will get cut down by half and with the crowding gone the impetus to do something will be gone too. Let's not forget that the opening of the new Moynihan station will also cut on the crowding, even though it will not be by much given that the location of the Farley Post office is further west than most people will want to walk.

Hudson Yards is projected to bring something like 200-250k jobs to the West Side over the next decade. Throw in all the rezoning in that area, and I think you have plenty of demand to fill capacity.

Also remember that MNR is eating up most spare slots into PSNY -- and I daresay those trains won't exactly be empty.

[EuroStar]

The trains will not be empty, but the crowding in the terminal will go down substantially which coupled with the fact that there are no easy money pots to use to fund this I do not see it as anything more that elections campaigning. It is likely that we will have a recession within the next few years with the corresponding decrease in ridership and money shortages for the MTA and the state, this will be the first thing to get dropped -- a conceptual project with no clear advocates, vision or funding. Anyway, I am not saying that there is no crowding or that improvement is not needed, I am only saying that in my book it is unlikely to happen.

[Jeff Smith]

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ ... ion--57781

MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) officials last week announced that construction of a new Penn Station entrance at 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City will begin June 17.
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