Why NY Penn Station Needs A 3rd
Track, Not A 4th
How to Add a 3rd Tunnel under the Hudson at ½ the
Cost
Introduction
Penn Station, and the NJ Transit
commuter are both like the Rodney Dangerfield of transportation – neither gets
any respect. Penn is – by far – the
largest transportation facility in the nation.
Penn Station moves twice as many people as the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s
Hartfeild-Jackson International, and nobody knows it. The station manages over 500,000 passengers a
day according to Amtrak and has needed to expand capacity under the Hudson
River for some time now. The reason it
hasn’t is the cost for constructing a new tunnel at this location is very high. Too high for Governor Christie who canceled
NJ Transit’s Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) tunnel project in 2010, but it
was even difficult for the Pennsylvania Rail Road when they built the original
tunnels back in 1910.
There is an alternative approach; if
we rethink how Penn Station is use, eliminate trains originating or terminating
their trip at Penn station, and implement a practice known as “through
routing,” we can then maximize the use the station’s existing infrastructure by
taking advantage of the location of the LIRR’s West Side Yard and build just 1
new tunnel instead of 2. This would
allow us to achieve the stated goal of doubling capacity under the Hudson River
for half (½) the cost of the ARC project or Amtrak’s Gateway project, both estimated
between $13 to $14.7 billion dollars.
Some Background
For a nation
that is so auto dependent, how Penn Station became such a large force, I have
no idea. According to Amtrak in the
spring of 1976 there were a total of 661 weekday train trips. Today there are 1,248 - a 90% growth
rate. Amtrak has already captured 75% of
the airline market between Boston and Washington, and they expect overall travel
demand at the station will double by 2050. Most of this is NJ Transit and LIRR passengers
who make up 95% of the station’s ridership.
Penn Station tunnel portals in NJ and
NJ Transit Passengers at Penn Station
In October
2012, Hurricane Sandy gave us another reason to consider as nature displayed just
how vulnerable the Hudson River tunnels are.
Amtrak and NJ Transit were knocked out of service as the tunnels were
flooded for two weeks causing havoc for Amtrak and NJ Transit Rail Commuters. Having only two-tracks under the Hudson River
makes it real difficult to operate.
There is no margin for error. Even
on a normal day in the peak morning and evening peak rush hours every train
slot is taken, and every train is packed.
The slightest problem gets magnified very quickly and can spread delays all
along the entire Northeast Corridor.
For years planners
and politicians have attempted to fix this problem but it has proven to be difficult
and costly, partly because of the terrain that must be crossed, which includes
the NJ Meadowlands, the Palisades and the Hudson River, and partly because of
the way we use Penn Station today. At the
core of the problem is a 10 mile long stretch from Newark, NJ to Penn Station,
NY. Most of the Northeast Corridor has 4
tracks, but in this particular area, at the Northeast Corridor’s most critical
peak load point, there are just 2 tracks (1 in each direction). In
“Conquering Gotham” an historical review of the PRR efforts to build these
tunnels and be the first railroad to reach Manhattan, author Jill Jonnes examined
in great detail the difficulties the Pennsylvania Rail Road faced in designing
a solution to cover these 10 miles.
Former PRR President
Alexander Cassett considered many options, including a path that is now used by
the Staten Island Expressway, Verrazano Narrows Bridge and Gowanus
Expressway. He also looked at an 8 track
bridge at the current location of the tunnel that could have eventually been expanded
to 14 tracks. According to Jonnes it was ultimately the French advances in traction
power that gave Cassett the confidence to build a tunnel in the least obtrusive
way maneuvering into a plot of land that they had purchase between 7th/8th
Avenues and 31st/33rd Streets in Manhattan. They wanted to secure their franchise
position in NYC - quietly - before going public about their plans. Today we still rely on those same two tracks
and tunnels. Can you imagine if the
George Washington Bridge had just 2 lanes – 1 in each direction?
 |
| Courtesy of Amtrak |
Click To Enlarge
Lessons
Learned From Failure of ARC – Can’t Cost Too Much
In 2009, NJ
Transit started construction on Access to the Region’s Core, a project that would
have covered those 10 miles with 2 new tracks and 2 new tunnels under the
Hudson River, plus a 6 track addition to Penn Station under Macy’s Department
Store. This ambitious project was cancelled
in 2010 by NJ Governor Christie citing a poor design and an excessive $13+
billion cost, which could not be guaranteed.
The lesson to
be learned from the ARC project’s demise is that the project became too large
and its $13 billion cost too expensive. We must be careful about how we design Amtrak’s
replacement project, Gateway which now projected to cost nearly $14.7 billion. Amtrak is working hard trying to solicit input
from all users, so there is still time to influence this design and bring the
costs down to something Trenton and Washington can live with.
Maximizing Penn
Station
Most people
have no idea that Penn Station is served by only 2 tunnels under the Hudson
River while there are 4 tracks under the East River. In the morning rush hour 48 trains can be
scheduled from Long Island, while only 24 can be scheduled from New
Jersey. If we can reorganize Penn
Station and consider the role the West Side Yard plays, we can maximize its use
and reduce the cost of the next new tunnel under the Hudson.
In the late 1980’s the LIRR built the
West Side Yard which reduced the amount of unnecessary train trips from Penn
Station to Long Island after the morning rush hour that were to going to park
for the day until the evening rush hour.
Today the West Side Yard captures 2/3rd of LIRR morning rush
our trains in. Having the West Side Yard
for the purposes of planning the next tunnel is like having a 3rd
tunnel under the Hudson into NJ already in place.
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
If we line up how trains enter and
leave the station there are 2 inbound
and 2 outbound under the East River tunnels, while the Hudson River has 1
inbound and 1 outbound. The West Side
Yard captures LIRR trains in the morning rush, and feeds trains into the
station in the evening rush. This
eliminates the need for and outbound (NJ bound) tunnel in the morning, and
inbound (NY bound) tunnel in the evening rush.
Then we need just need 1 additional tunnel under the Hudson and we can
still achieve the goal to double capacity from NJ to NY in the morning and NY
to NJ in evening rush hours. The key to
this is implementing this plan is to utilize a standard practice of “through
routing” trains at Penn Station which would require an overhaul of current
operating practices, including how passengers use the station.
Through-routing
is not a term typically used by the public – it is a technical term that means
trains pass through a station, as opposed to “terminate.” Today, many LIRR and
NJ Transit trains (not all) terminate within Penn Station, and then head back
in the direction they came from. This back
and forth movement causes congestion within the station that could for the most
part be eliminated - if all commuter trains simply passed through Penn Station
onto terminals at the far reaches of the metropolitan region such as; Trenton, Suffern, Port Jervis, Stamford, New
Haven, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson and Montauk.
Through-routing
has been successfully implemented in London, Paris and Philadelphia and other
cities, and there are some great advantages from a passenger’s point of view. NJ Transit service would reach JFK Airport,
Yankee Stadium, Citi Field and the US Open, and LIRR & Metro North trains would
serve Newark Liberty Airport, Met Life Stadium and the Prudential Center.
Adding a 3rd
tube under the Hudson would allow planners to use the West Side Yard as it was
intended, to park trains during the day, and we can balance the operating plan evenly
among the four trunk tunnel lines that would operate through Penn Station. The additional tunnel and track would need to reach all the way back to Newark to relieve the congestion and add the capacity needed to manage 24 trains in the peak (8:00-9:00AM) hour. At Penn, each of the four trunk lines could be
assigned 3 exclusive use platform tracks for commuter trains, (5-7 and 13-21) while
Amtrak can have 5 exclusive use platforms (Track 8-12) for Northeast Corridor
service, while the Empire Service, along with Metro North’s Hudson Line could
use tracks 1-4. This would give each
commuter train a platform dwell time of 8.5 minutes.
 |
| Picture by: Willy Previdi |
This schematic shows Penn Station and
its relationship to the 4 tunnels from Queens, 2 tunnels from NJ, and the
proximity of the West Side Yard and potential 3rd track from
NJ.
In
Philadelphia, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) implemented
a similar service plan when they opened the Center City Commuter Tunnel in 1984. SEPTA through routed the operations of two
old competing railroads (the Pennsylvania and the Reading) and it has been
successfully providing service for 28 years.
Passengers rarely notice on the platform at Suburban Station that train crew’s
change – a vestige of the old railroad operations when trains terminated at
either Suburban or Reading Terminals. To
the public the details of through routing may appear a simple mundane, but how
we staff such an operation, and move the trains around has huge implications and
relatively smaller, but not insignificant capital costs.
To implement
through routing there needs to be upgrades to signal and power systems, train
equipment, as well as operating procedures and where trains will be stored. Also Penn Station’s mezzanines and concourses
would need new way-finding signs as track assignments would be comingled
between what are now segregated LIRR and NJ Transit concourses.
However, these
changes to Penn Station are a relative low price to pay when compared to the
savings of constructing just 1 new tunnel under the Hudson River instead of 2
which ultimately could save billions (with a capital B) of dollars – and reduce
the project cost by half (½).
Ridership Studies
Ridership
studies performed by NJ Transit Ridership clearly show that the need for
additional rail service is only in the peak rush hour direction
(inbound toward Manhattan in the morning, and away from Manhattan in the evening). The reverse peak ridership demand does not
justify building the second tunnel under the Hudson River.
With the
West Side Yard and through routing in place, not only can we avoid building the
2nd new tunnel under the Hudson River, we can also eliminate adding the 6 new
tracks at Penn Station. According to
former MTA Capital Program President, Mysore Nagaraja, who was in charge when
the 2nd Avenue, #7 extension and LIRR East Side Access projects
began construction said, “Eliminating the 6 track station could save another $2+
billion.”
Conclusion -
Less Can Be More
Penn Station
is our nation’s busiest and most successful transportation facility and we
should pay attention to its needs. If
the answers provided cost too much – then we need to be flexible in finding an
answer. I believe there is an answer
available if we rethink how we use Penn Station. We can still achieve the goal of doubling
peak hour (8:00 AM to 9:00 AM) train service under the Hudson from 24 to 48
trains by simplifying train movements through the station which would allow us
to maximize the current stations capacity, and allow us to add just 1 new track
under the Hudson, instead of 2. Adding 1 track now does not prevent adding more tracks later.
President
Obama speaks of creating High Speed Rail, but the most important thing to do
now is to get the next step going or we risk choking on the tremendous progress
that the commuter rail and intercity rail marketplace has already
achieved. I don’t disagree with Governor
Christie’s decision to cancel the ARC project due to cost, but as Hurricane
Sandy has shown we are vulnerable and need a new option. New Jersey Transit and Amtrak riders need some
respect and Amtrak deserves the ability to rebuild the existing tunnels that
have served us so well for over 100 years.
Robert W.
Previdi
Philadelphia,
PA
February 23,
2013
Email: robertwprevidi@gmail.com
Twitter: @BobPrevidi
Former MTA official says Hoboken should be stop for Subway expansion (NJ.com)
Posted Jan 7, 2012
After reports examining the possibility of expanding the No. 7 train subway into Secaucus, one MTA official said Hoboken is a better and more realistic stop if the MTA decides to move into New Jersey.
Bob Previdi, a former MTA official, said Hoboken has a better audience and capacity if plans continue to include Hudson County in the subway system.
Previdi pointed out that Secaucus has four tracks, while Hoboken has 18 that can be used for the project. “At Secaucus you would have to build at least one, if not a pair, of new tracks,” Previdi told New York's
He said adding a No. 7 station stop to Hoboken would mean more than 30,000 passengers could move through Hoboken, adding to the 32,000 that currently use Hoboken's transit hub.
The PATH station in Hoboken services World Trade Center and 33rd Street, but the No. 7 train would add access to Midtown and Grand Central Station.
Also, moving the 7 to Hoboken would cost half of what it would to move to Secaucus- estimating $5 billion instead of $10 billion.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg financed a report about the feasibility of adding a station in Secaucus, and is reportedly happy with the outcome. Metro said he is expected to announce a plan in the upcoming months.
The idea for expanding into New Jersey came after Governor Chris Christie canceled the tunnel project which would add extra transportation outlets to and from New York City.
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