Governors Hochul, Murphy, Mayor Adams set to announce new Penn Station plans
Governors Kathy Hochul and Phil Murphy will join Mayor Eric Adams and MTA officials Thursday morning to announce the latest plans to renovate Penn Station.
They want to change it from a cramped two-story structure to a sweeping single-level train hall.
Penn Station has long been in the crosshairs of governors looking to renovate the decades-old transit hub, linking MTA, NJ Transit, and Amtrak trains with the city’s subway system in a claustrophobic maze of cramped, confusing corridors.
Hochul previously outlined plans to remove lower floor ceilings to create a “grand,” single-level train hall that would make commuters feel safer.
In a tour that followed, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said the $7 billion project is designed to redeem the train hub’s tarnished image in the eyes of New Yorkers.
“We could have a 100-foot high space, skylit, the size of Grand Central Station’s train hall and Moynihan Train Hall combined,” Lieber said at the time, referring to the cross-town stations for the Metro-North commuter rail and Amtrak.
The nation’s busiest rail hub pre-pandemic has long been considered the “most reviled transportation facility in the country,” Lieber said.
The plan, announced last November, significantly scaled-down a Cuomo-era vision that had become mired in controversy.