What is the Penn Station Capacity Improvements Project?

The Penn Station Capacity Improvements Project (PCIP) is NJ Transit’s planning and conceptual engineering study of near-term ways to add rail capacity and reliability at New York Penn Station. Its January 2020 draft final report, by LTK Engineering Services and Ove Arup & Partners (Arup), looks for relief that can be built while the larger Gateway Program and its Hudson River Tunnel are planned and constructed.

From the 2020 report · Figure 8

The station, in layers

Why the study exists

Penn Station is the busiest intercity railroad station in the United States, handling more than 600,000 passengers per weekday as of 2017. It serves NJ Transit, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), and Amtrak, and it is the principal hub of the Northeast Corridor. The station opened in 1910 for very different demands and technology. It now suffers from severe congestion, poorly arranged vertical circulation, and unreliable aging track and systems.

When the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) project was canceled in 2010, the planned capacity expansion went with it, but demand for trans-Hudson rail capacity kept growing. Amtrak then advanced the Gateway Program, including two new Hudson River Tunnels (HRT) and the Penn Station Expansion (PSE). The new tunnels add tunnel capacity and redundancy but do not by themselves add NJ Transit platform capacity at Penn Station, and the expansion was projected to take a decade or more. The PCIP set out to find incremental investments that could deliver relief within five to ten years without precluding Gateway.

Scope and method

The study covered the southern part of Penn Station, where NJ Transit’s platforms are concentrated; 31st Street between Sixth and Ninth Avenues; and the proposed locations for the new tunnel portals. It ran in five tasks:

1. Existing conditions and base mapping (Tasks 1 and 2). The team consolidated more than 100 historical and current design documents into a PCIP Document Catalog and built a 3D model of the station that maps its constraints, including the New York City Transit Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Avenue subways, major utilities, and neighboring building foundations.
2. Evaluation approach (Task 3). A two-phase framework used a stoplight chart and scatter plots to score alternatives on 23 criteria, grouped as implementation considerations (engineering complexity, cost, schedule, constructability) and performance considerations (capacity, customer experience, resiliency).
3. Alternatives (Tasks 4 and 5). Fourteen infrastructure and three operational alternatives were identified. Spatial and design screening narrowed them to four infrastructure and two operational alternatives for detailed evaluation.

Infrastructure alternatives

Two constraints shape every option: a large unreinforced concrete retaining wall on the station’s south side beneath 31st Street, and the low-clearance Seventh and Eighth Avenue subway structures. The four finalists fall into two groups.

A new platform south of Track 1

• Alternative 12 (the PCIP concept). A new 1,020-foot island platform, Platform A, with two tracks under 31st Street and the northern edge of Block 780. It requires demolishing the south retaining wall and underpinning the Eighth Avenue subway. New “T” and “R” track ladders connect to both the existing North River Tunnels and the planned HRT, preserving parallel moves. The platform is placed to avoid underpinning the historic St. John the Baptist Church and the Affinia Hotel, and a new Concourse A above it would improve east-west pedestrian flow.
• Alternative 13 (Amtrak’s PSE Phase 1 concept), for comparison. The first phase of Amtrak’s proposed expansion places the platform farther east. It requires underpinning the Seventh and Eighth Avenue subways, St. John the Baptist Church, and the Affinia Hotel. It allows a later full build of the expansion, but its track layout supports parallel moves less well than Alternative 12.

From the 2020 report · Figure 14

Alternative 12: a new platform south of Track 1

Longer existing platforms

• Alternative 14 (PCIP westward extension). Platforms 1 and 2 are extended 250 feet west to a total of 1,020 feet, long enough for 12-car trains. Tracks 1 to 3 move from the existing “U” and “M” ladders to the new “T” and “R” ladders. The diagonal platform is removed, 13 columns supporting the Eighth Avenue subway are relocated, and new vertical connections reach the West End Concourse and the Exit Concourse, all without touching the Seventh Avenue subway.
• Alternative 15 (the PSCE 30 percent design), for comparison. A design from the canceled Penn Station Capacity Enhancement (PSCE) project that extends tracks both east and west. The eastern extension requires underpinning the Seventh Avenue subway and tunneling into the basement of 11 Penn Plaza.

From the 2020 report · Figure 20

Alternative 14: extend the platforms west

Results

The study found that Alternatives 12 and 14 are physically and operationally compatible. Together they would add a platform, allow 12-car trains on existing platforms, and prepare the station’s track approaches for the new tunnels.

Operational alternatives

Because construction takes years, the study also evaluated operating changes that could add capacity sooner.

• OP1: an 18-minute turnaround. The minimum scheduled revenue-to-revenue turnaround at Penn Station platforms falls from 22 minutes to 18. With drop-back crews, a fresh engineer boards at the front while the arriving engineer is still shutting down the rear, instead of walking the length of the platform, which takes about five minutes. The report estimates a 17 percent increase in platform capacity. It can accommodate 26 trains per hour if the tunnel approaches are also upgraded, or keep 24 trains per hour while freeing a spare track for recovering from disruptions.
• OP2: faster “X” track approaches. Replacing the No. 10 turnouts (Switch 79) with higher-speed No. 12 turnouts and extending ACSES II positive train control to the X tracks raises the maximum X-track approach speed from 15 to 30 miles per hour. That adds 2 trains per hour of practical capacity in the existing North River Tunnels, from 24 to 26.

The study recommended advancing both. They reinforce each other: faster turnarounds make platform capacity available, while faster approaches allow more trains to reach the station.

Operating alternatives · 2020 study

Two operating changes, one capacity gain

OP1 · At the platform

Shorten the turnaround

A fresh engineer takes the departure end of the train, eliminating the walk from one end to the other.

Baseline22 min

Drop-back crews18 min

022 minutes

OP2 · On the approach

Speed up the approach

Higher-speed turnouts and extended train control let trains clear the X-track approaches sooner.

Baseline15 mph

Upgraded approaches30 mph

030 mph

Eastbound through the existing tunnels

Room for 2 more trains per hour

Faster turnarounds create platform capacity; faster approaches increase practical tunnel capacity.

Baseline24 trains/hr

With improvements26 trains/hr

026 trains per hour

Construction challenges

• Retaining wall. Alternative 12 removes about 1,100 linear feet of unreinforced concrete wall, 22 feet deep. Temporary columns and foundations inside Track 1 would carry the station roof during demolition.
• Building underpinning. Building south of 31st Street means underpinning large structures, including the Amtrak Service Building (five stories of steel over a three-level basement) and possibly 15- to 17-story office buildings. The report proposes threaded micropiles drilled into bedrock to transfer building loads before the track level is excavated.
• Subway structures. Alternative 14 extends platforms directly beneath the Eighth Avenue subway. Tight clearances mean transferring the subway’s loads with temporary beams and jacks during coordinated weekend and overnight outages.

From the 2020 report · Figure 24

Why extending a platform means moving columns

Conclusions and next steps

The study found near-term capacity and reliability improvements at Penn Station spatially and structurally feasible. It recommended advancing Alternative 12 (the new platform), Alternative 14 (the westward extensions), OP1 (18-minute turnarounds), and OP2 (faster X-track approaches) together.

The report’s executive summary estimates that the combined package could add 2 trains per hour before the new Hudson River Tunnels open and up to 10 trains per hour after. They would also support “2 and 1” tunnel operations, which Amtrak needs to take each existing North River Tunnel out of service for rehabilitation after Superstorm Sandy.

The report’s next steps were to take Alternatives 12 and 14 to 10 percent conceptual engineering, pursue the drop-back crews and faster switches before major construction, and run detailed train-operation simulations in coordination with Amtrak and the Gateway Program. For how this study fits the wider debate, see where the federal study stands and the case for through-running.