Just as Gov. Kathy Hochul was getting her first look at the LIRR’s future hub at Grand Central Terminal on Sunday, she dialed up the urgency in addressing the “scary” conditions at Penn Station.
“It’s is like a setting of ‘Halloween’ — scary and a place you don’t want to be any longer than possible,” Hochul said of Penn.
She said a “high priority” for her administration is to improve the existing conditions inside dingy and cramped Penn, the busiest train station in the U.S.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Amtrak, which owns the station, have plans for a future renovation and expansion of the 111-year-old station.
Most of the current construction at Penn involves raising the ceiling and widening the corridor along the main LIRR concourse running beneath 33rd Street between 7th and 8th avenues.
But other plans being considered includes far more — such as breaking through the ceiling of the Long Island Rail Road’s lower level and combining it with about 40% of Amtrak’s existing second level to create a single-level concourse with tall ceilings and more direct access to tracks and street.
The planned improvements are projected to cost between $7 billion and $10 billion, and could be completed by 2028, according to the MTA.
Hochul said she is “very impatient” and wants changes soon to make Penn look more like the new Moynihan Train Hall, which opened across Eighth Avenue on New Year’s Day.
“Now you get to Penn Station and you kind of put your head down. … I want people to look up,” Hochul said during the Halloween train ride to the East Side Access site, the LIRR’s sleek new terminal at Grand Central that’s slated to open for passengers in December 2022. “Everybody deserves to have that type of experience.”