Amtrak/LIRR Moynihan Train Hall

IMO the main beneficiary of the NYPS improvements and new tunnel bores will be.----------
1. LIRR riders
2. Future MNRR riders from New Rochelle
3. Future MNRR riders from the Hudson line
4. And most of all NJT riders who are overwhelming PS at rush hours.
All that said who has been hit with the most costs ? Appears to be Amtrak as its number of trains has only increased very slightly as compared to LIRR and NJT.

Tadman wrote:It's interesting that big cities will happily build mega-money sports arenas for 10 games a year, but will not build mega-money train stations for 300,000 people PER FREAKING DAY. MSG holds 20,000 people, Cowboy Stadium holds 100,000 (I think that's the largest). Why is Amtrak on the hook for this money when New York City/State gets all the benefit?

We are talking about the city where they spent $4 billion on a subway station, right?

bdawe wrote:

Tadman wrote:It's interesting that big cities will happily build mega-money sports arenas for 10 games a year, but will not build mega-money train stations for 300,000 people PER FREAKING DAY. MSG holds 20,000 people, Cowboy Stadium holds 100,000 (I think that's the largest). Why is Amtrak on the hook for this money when New York City/State gets all the benefit?

We are talking about the city where they spent $4 billion on a subway station, right?

Not usually a defender of NY City government, but I will say that NYC isn't really one of those places that pours billions into sports facilities at the expense of other public good (here's looking at you, Cobb County.) The Yankees and Mets are on the hook for principal + interest payments for Yankee Stadium & Citi Field, respectively. Same goes for the owner of the Barclays Center. Giants' Stadium isn't even in New York State. And MSG itself was built by a private developer after he purchased the air rights from the PRR back in 1962. And the MTA has spent $$$ over the years making Grand Central the gem it is today.

Amtrak is on the hook for this right now because Amtrak owns Pennsylvania Station, as successor to Penn Central. Whether that should be the case going forward is up in the air. Some politicians hereabouts are starting to make noises about creating a stand-alone entity to own/manage Penn, at least according to the news this morning. That might make sense. But for right now, Amtrak is the landlord. The LIRR and NJT are the tenants. The tenants have the right to insist that the landlord bring the premises they're renting to an agreed-upon state of good repair.

EuroStar wrote:Unfortunately I do not see the Garden moving any time soon as the public is unlikely to swallow the cost of paying off the current owners. The most we can hope is for the theater under the main Garden to be removed. That would actually allow for a decent amount of light and free quite a bit of space for reconfiguration of the concourses. For reasons beyond my knowledge though, the proposed redesign (covering existing Penn and the post office) that won Cuomo's competition does not include the removal of the theater.

This is a very good - and often overlooked - point. The Garden arena itself sits quite a few levels above the street, and Penn's concourses below. It's the Theater that's sandwiched OVER the main concourse level and UNDER the west end of the Garden. Removing this would allow a huge improvement to be made in terms of getting ceiling space and light in the facility.

The bigger problem is that even the current floor size of the main concourse is inadequate to handle the volume of people moving through. The entire level needs to be redesigned and rebuilt from scratch to truly meet the needs of today's demands.

Someone who has the info can fill us in. What has LIRR and NJT paid for each scheduled train since Amtrak took over NYPS? Also per passenger charges. Since we don't know it is really impossible to know if LIRR and NJT is paying its fair share. Break down each year if possible. And to add into the mix is future MNRR service by 2 routes.

JamesRR wrote:

EuroStar wrote:Unfortunately I do not see the Garden moving any time soon as the public is unlikely to swallow the cost of paying off the current owners. The most we can hope is for the theater under the main Garden to be removed. That would actually allow for a decent amount of light and free quite a bit of space for reconfiguration of the concourses. For reasons beyond my knowledge though, the proposed redesign (covering existing Penn and the post office) that won Cuomo's competition does not include the removal of the theater.

This is a very good - and often overlooked - point. The Garden arena itself sits quite a few levels above the street, and Penn's concourses below. It's the Theater that's sandwiched OVER the main concourse level and UNDER the west end of the Garden. Removing this would allow a huge improvement to be made in terms of getting ceiling space and light in the facility.

The bigger problem is that even the current floor size of the main concourse is inadequate to handle the volume of people moving through. The entire level needs to be redesigned and rebuilt from scratch to truly meet the needs of today's demands.

That removal of the theater was dropped so early on and hasn't been mentioned since makes me speculate that MSG and the state may be quietly working out a plan for a new stadium. If the facility is to be replaced whole-hog over the next 15 years, then removal of the theater would certainly make little sense. Of course, it could be that the Dolans prevailed over the Cuomo administration and neither a new stadium nor the theater removal are happening, but I would like to believe the state is not that apathetic to the glaring need to open up more circulation space.

I personally don't understand why most concepts for a new MSG keep the new venue in Manhattan. Even in its central location, my understanding is that most MSG audience members do not use mass transit to reach it. Certainly, the performers and teams aren't using the subways or rail to access the site. The Citi Field area, OTOH, has better highway access than Manhattan, good-enough transit options and enough underutilized space to fit another MSG-sized facility, leaving the Penn Station block free for a proper train hall and other enterprises that will achieve a far better symbiosis with Penn Station than we have today.

Up here in Boston the Garden and North Station, the subway, commuter rail and Amtrak are heavily used during game days. I'd expect that MSG, Penn and the subways would be used just as much.

New Management? ProgressiveRailroading.com

Brief, fair-use:

Amtrak will create a "concourse development" entity to unify concourse operations and management at Penn Station in New York City, the railroad's President and Chief Executive Officer Wick Moorman announced yesterday at a New York State Assembly committee hearing.

The entity will seek private-sector partners to handle and improve Penn Station's concourse operations and maintenance, Moorman said, according to a prepared statement of his testimony before the committee.
...
Beyond the infrastructure work, Penn Station also requires other improvements. This year, Amtrak will issue a solicitation for a "best-in-class" building manager that can manage operations and maintenance within the railroad's space in the station. Additionally, Moorman asked former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Tom Prendergast to head a Penn Station Passenger Concourse Coordination Review to help improve collaboration between the three railroads that use the station.
...

Red Wing wrote:Up here in Boston the Garden and North Station, the subway, commuter rail and Amtrak are heavily used during game days. I'd expect that MSG, Penn and the subways would be used just as much.

Even more so, at all hours even with no games or events scheduled.

I'd imagine the bulk of MSG users are taking transit to the place - trains tend to be a bit more packed on event nights, and there's really not much parking in the area.

I also don't get why you'd move MSG. What do you put above Penn, then? Retail? Way too much of that around as it is. Office space? Ditto. NYC needs a sports / event venue, and Barcaly's isn't gonna cut it for a lot of things (way too small). Putting it right over one of the best connected transit hubs in the region, makes sense.

As an aside - transit access DOES matter in this area, look at what a white elephant Nassau Coliseum has turned into. Bad enough it sucks, it sucks to get to. Not that this'll matter in a few years, I don't see the Islanders sticking around much longer, and without a team, the place will sit and rot, and then be torn down to make way for more luxury townhomes....

Okay, catch me up here for a bit. The current plan for Penn Station is to build Moynihan Station, and move all NJT passengers waiting for trains there?

Amtrak will get moved over to Moynihan.

No idea, I'm not from there. In my book that's even better reason for NYC to pony up.

Amtrak's ticket office,it's general waiting room, and the first class lounge move to Moynihan station,
along with some select retail/food outlets.
NJT stays in the old shared concourse.

Actually, it is a bit hard to know what is going on with Moynihan given that very little has been made public. It is a private project lead by Vornado, Skanska, and I forget, maybe Related. My understanding was that LIRR was going to be the biggest beneficiary of Moynihan because you know, it is an NY state project that Cuomo is trying to have his name attached to as the one to make it happen. While Amtrak is supposed to move too, don't bet on it. Why would they move and pay someone else rent? It is not that Amtrak has extra money lying around.

NJT is so broke, they could not find the money to connect the West End Concourse to platforms 1 and 2. They are not moving, even though NJT is the only railroad that can make proper use of the postal platform (Amtrak might be able to run Empire Service from there, but that would not fully utilize the capacity of the platform at all times of the day).