The 1963 Plan That Could Have Saved Penn Station

Buried on page 16C of the New York Sunday News from May 19, 1963—just months before Pennsylvania Station met its demise—sits an article with the headline: “Tunnel Under Park Ave. Urged to Link All Rail Lines.” The paper is yellowed now, the kind of artifact you’d find in a library’s microfilm collection if you knew […]

The Failure of Metropolitan Coordination in the New York Tri-State Area

An inquiry into the historical trajectory of regional governance within the New York metropolitan area reveals a persistent pattern of institutional fragmentation and frustrated attempts at meaningful coordination. While the post-war era witnessed the emergence of a broad consensus among planners and some public officials on the necessity of addressing metropolitan problems on a scale […]

Train to the Game: How Metro-North, Amtrak, and NJ Transit Built—and Killed—Regional Rail to the Meadowlands

https://liamblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/TrainToTheGame.mov Train To The Game 8 min read How the MTA, Amtrak, and NJ Transit Built—and Killed—Regional Rail to the Meadowlands The 8-year rise and fall of a tri-state experiment in regional integration, and what it means for the 2026 World Cup Howard Permut (Metro-North), Helena Williams (MTA interim executive director), and Richard Sarles (NJ […]

The Center City Commuter Connection

Key Insights • The Infrastructure: A 1.7-mile, $330 million tunnel united the Pennsylvania and Reading railroad networks in 1984. • The Impact: Eliminated downtown transfers, saving 2,500 daily person-hours and enabling direct suburb-to-suburb travel. • The Unmet Potential: Despite physical capacity rivaling Munich’s S-Bahn, funding crises and operational choices have prevented true high-frequency metro service. […]