blasito wrote:I heard an interview with an executive at NY Red Bull who said while they are working with the PA to improve game day transit, the new station will be built only when the other development in the area is going up, so were looking at a wait of 3-5 years or longer, depending on the market.
If the PA is going to wait another 3 to 5 years, I hope they design an island platform station where the current WTC bound platform is, shifting both PATH mains to the stadium-ward side of the ROW. It addresses the split layout of the station, which is suboptimal anyway and is going to be even more so if development around Harrison takes off. Moreover, shifting the westward PATH track to the south side of the ROW for the entire run from Harrison to Kearny (or wherever it breaks off to hug the MMC) will allow NJT to finish the Waterfront Connection. That would allow NJT to run more direct trains to Hoboken by eliminating a westbound crossover of the NY-bound NEC main that is hard to schedule.
Now, since I am studying in North Jersey but come from the shore area, there is a selfish motivation here
. But it may be a relatively easy way to add capacity until the new Hudson tunnel is built. More than that, when (not if) construction for the new Hudson rail tunnel, I imagine some NJT trains to Penn will be diverted periodically anyway to facilitate construction; a complete Waterfront Connection would greatly simplify such an arrangement.
Would it be a big undertaking? Yes. I won't hold my breath, but three to five years is a lot of time. Perhaps the PA, NJT and Amtrak can coordinate some plan like this.