Amtrak introduced it has selected a company to guide the design and engineering of latest tracks and platforms to make bigger New York Penn Station.
London-based Arup Group, a company that has labored on primary transportation initiatives all over the world, was once tapped to guide the trouble, in keeping with a free up from Amtrak on Thursday.
The design paintings is predicted to take two years and price $73 million, a invoice that can be paid by way of Amtrak, which owns New York Penn Station. NJ Transit and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road are tenant railroads that use the station.
“The design will focal point on building of latest tracks and platforms, escalators and different vertical movement components, pedestrian concourses, and connections to present and long run amenities,” in keeping with a press free up saying the company.
The environmental overview can be led by way of the MTA and may just start later this yr.
This paintings is become independent from the request for proposals introduced two weeks in the past by way of leaders from New York, New Jersey and the 3 transportation businesses. That RFP, for which proposals are due July 23, is for renovations of the present New York Penn Station.
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Arup Group can be in command of working out techniques to extend the collection of tracks that may have get admission to to Penn. One proposal first highlighted in 2020 by way of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo would make bigger the station south with a minimum of 8 new tracks, however calls for condemning a minimum of a block of structures together with a church and a number of other residential and industrial structures.
Planning and preparation also are ongoing for a 3rd piece of Penn Station updating: the $12.6 billion mission to construct two new Hudson River rail tunnels into the transit hub and rehabilitate the 2 these days feeding the station. Leaders from New York and New Jersey are operating on a memorandum of figuring out about the right way to break up their prices of the mission.
A brand new recommendation for Penn Station
Meanwhile, a brand new document from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign gives a plan to construct simply two new tracks south of New York Penn Station, after which in a 2nd section get rid of one of the vital central platforms at Penn to reconfigure the present tracks and rebuild the platforms so that they’re wider. It would additionally prolong two present platforms within the south finish so passengers can get admission to the West End Concourse in Moynihan Train Hall.
This, creator Liam Blank argues, would “permit for trains to concurrently sell off and cargo passengers, simply as they do at each and every different rail station within the area, which is able to accelerate provider, supply more room for stairs and elevators, and make allowance for more secure movement of other people right through the station.”
The final purpose of this proposal, on the other hand, is contingent on a a lot more intensive imaginative and prescient to unify the 3 commuter railroads to create a regional rail machine, grounded in a type followed all over the place Europe, referred to as through-running. This idea approach trains proceed income provider previous the central industry district, shifting passengers extra successfully. Currently, provider ends at the most well liked educate stations, like New York Penn and Grand Central Station in Midtown Manhattan.
In different phrases, the proposal would have NJ Transit trains proceed previous Penn and make stops in Queens and Long Island and as much as Westchester County or Connecticut, whilst Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains would proceed into New Jersey. Other advocacy and analysis teams, together with the Regional Plan Association and ReThink Penn Station, have voiced fortify for the same thought and say that through-running potency preempts the will for such a lot of new tracks.
Cuomo’s thought to construct 8 new tracks south of New York Penn Station incorporated provisions that might permit for long run through-running, however Blank notes that that concept is reliant at the long run building of “Gateway East,” two new tunnels throughout the East River that “is probably not finished till 2080, if ever,” in keeping with the document.
The document, on the other hand, mentions a number of demanding situations to creating regional rail paintings. Those come with:
- Investments to make the 3 railroads perform at the identical energy machine. They are these days a mixture of catenary, 3rd rail and diesel-run trains
- New rail yards to retailer trains
- Resolving hard work problems to make educate operations extra environment friendly for extra provider
- Using a extra regionalized fare and switch cost machine
Amtrak declined to remark at the document. NJ Transit didn’t reply to a request for remark at the document.
Eugene Resnick, an MTA spokesman, mentioned the company agreed at the “elementary concept that the commercial good fortune of the New York metropolitan space hinges on increasing ties between communities.”
He added that the MTA already has some efforts underway to beef up the connectivity between the railroads by way of increasing LIRR get admission to to Grand Central and Metro-North to Penn, in addition to new fare choices.
Colleen Wilson covers the Port Authority and NJ Transit for NorthJersey.com. For limitless get admission to to her paintings protecting the area’s transportation techniques and the way they impact your shuttle, please subscribe or turn on your virtual account as of late.
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Twitter: @colleenallreds