People Fighting to Get on Train

Granted from what i read on this forum , the trains are very orchestrated , and have exact times which is fine. But something needs to be done with crowd control at penn station. i think a roped lineup would help . making people form a line earlier. But the fact is everyone behaves and thinks the train is going to leave without them , i have experienced this myself. Why cant NJT/ amtrak agree on longer boarding times at penn. IF people knew they had a reasonable time to go down the steps , there wouldnt people fighting to squeeze thru the 2 people max door . Its just shows the failure of transit in the USA .

Yup. I'd imagine the train dwell time is indeed highly orchestrated, and they can't just increase dwell time in the station. Furthermore, they need the flexibility to arrive at an open track, especially when things start going south with the schedule. Where would you put the roped line? How would it be an improvement, if you can't guarantee the track that the train comes on?

Also, NYC commuters are not going to stand in line. They'll just hang out around the line, and shove themselves through the door as usual. There is a prize to be had - your choice of a preferred seat.

It is better at Penn Station New York than Penn Station Newark where people getting on the train fight the people getting off the train.

And as bad as it is on NJT, I think the PATH animals are worse.

There are many more problems and factors going into this. Unlike the LIRR side, Grand Central and Hoboken NJT and Amtrak trains in Penn Station are rarely, if ever (with the exception of a couple of the early rush 39XX trains), posted more than ten minutes prior to departure and are often posted with five minutes or less to departure. Passengers are routinely left on the stairs as the doors close. Whether it is Amtrak dispatchers or the LIRR dispatchers I don't know but somebody up there has a horrible sense of timing and humor in as much as they routinely allow two ten car rush hour trains to arrive on the same platform at the same time without notifying the station staff so that escalators can be turned in the right direction. They will also routinely call departing trains on the same platform. They will call two NJT trains to depart on the same platform at the same time. This (a) can't be done in an orderly fashion and (b) is further compounded by passengers who can't tell the difference between Track 9 and Track 10. Amtrak and NJT will frequently depart from the same platform with an announcement that one is on the East gate and the other at the West gate. That's ridiculous. While the big board and the full Amtrak departure monitors will usually correclty show east and west any DepartureVision boards will not. The gate agents will not allow NJT passengers down on the Amtrak side. Why??????? The platform is the same. Often when that happens the NJT designated gate has an escalator going in the wrong direction and the downstairs escalator may also be going in the wrong direction.

Passengers are absolutely unruly and they just don't know how to behave but the dispatchers, station announcers, and gate staff make the situation much worse than it needs to be through their own lack of internal communications.

Well I'm certainly not going to say how great things are at NYP, but a few comments...

Most commuters get how things work and I've never seen anyone 'fight' to get on a train. Nor have I ever seen passengers regularly left on the platform because they were unable to get down the stairs to a train. (Maybe showing up late was as much to blame as the crowds.)

The main problem is that there are not enough ways to get to and from the platforms. The new west end concourse will help some even though it doesn't connect to tracks 1-4 and is therefore of more limited use to NJT passengers.

What also needs to be done is expanding the central corridor to the NJT side and NJT should do a concourse under 31st street to connect it all. If those things were done the passengers would have many more ways to get to and from the trains. The station will never be perfect, but that would help.

And I suppose if Moynihan station ever gets done -- the real part not the west end concourse -- that will also help.

What also needs to be done is expanding the central corridor to the NJT side and NJT should do a concourse under 31st street to connect it all. If those things were done the passengers would have many more ways to get to and from the trains. The station will never be perfect, but that would help.

And I suppose if Moynihan station ever gets done -- the real part not the west end concourse -- that will also help.[/quote]

Good point about the Central Corridor. Not sure if it can be expanded (what might be in the way structurally) - but the LIRR definitely has more access points (Main Gate Area, Central Corr, Exit Concourse, WE Concourse).

Part of the problem is that originally Penn Station was designed to have outgoing passengers use the main upper concourse to depart, and arrivals were funneled through today's "Exit" concourse. Splitting the flow. Today's NJT service utilizes the Exit concourse in an in/out fashion, which causes major traffic jams. The LIRR was originally part of Penn Station, so it had appropriate egress points built around the station.

The current extension of the WE Concourse should help NJT commuters (on tracks 5-12) by not requiring them to enter Penn Station proper to access the tracks from the 8 Ave Subway.

I have to agree with Bleet. I used to be a rush hour commuter (and still am for certain contract work I do) through Penn St. It's abysmal, it's awlful, it's crowded and packed --- but it's rarely unruly or violent. I can count on one hand how many times this year I've heard/seen an altercation - and it's usually just a few cross words. That said - it's almost worse getting off the trains than getting on. You can wait a LONG TIME on a platform before the queue makes it's way upstairs to the station. And when two trains come in together - ugh....
For whatever reason, the preferred seat as someone mentioned, people run to the stairway as if they are going to be left behind. I've been there at the peak of rush hour, with a minute to get on the train, and have never been left or seen anyone left on the stairs - in decades. People miss the train but usually because they are simply late. I've watched the trainmen look at the stairs and generally check with each other before signaling to close the doors. Considering the situation they are in, it could be much worse.
I do wish we had a more commuter-friendly station though. It'd be so much nicer to have a bit more lead time and much more access to the platforms....

When I visit friends in the city, I simply take PATH to & from world trade centre and Newark penn station. In cold weather it can be a tad unpleasant with all the people in winter clothes, taking up more space. I got sick of New York penn years ago, for all the reasons mentioned in previous posts..

You have a larger crowd going through Penn Station New York than Grand Central with less than a third the track capacity. Calling the train to a track half an hour out isnt going to happen. Look at pictures off the 7 train, with the lines of trains waiting to leave Sunnyside to get to the station and youll see it has nothing to do with "dispatchers having a sense of humor".. No, its a matter of one train comes up, takes its passengers, goes, and then the next train in line pulls up on that track, then they pull the next one up, call it, people go down, loads up, and goes. You cant call the train third in line waiting for a track to open on track seven with another train already there, say that train already there has a door problem and cant go? Well now you got hundreds of people down there that have to go back up the stairs to another track to find that train, and with them is the rush off the inbound that pulled in on the next track. So, by calling the train too early, you actually just slowed it down. Use your sense of direction, be at the correct area, and go. It isnt pretty, but, theres no room to make it better.

one of the problems too , is people rushing the elevators. because they dont want to deal with the crowd.

Another point to remember is that switches are not 100% reliable. The TOC will not post a departure from SSY until the route at JO is lined and locked in on the model board.