Conflict About the FRA Study on Penn Station

The Federal Railroad Administration just released phase 1 of its own study on Penn Station capacity. Assuming that the Gateway tunnel is built but no other improvements to the station are made, the FRA thinks that the station’s infrastructure can handle a peak traffic of 32 trains per hour entering from New Jersey in the morning and 30 returning in the afternoon if part of the station is used for through-running. The assumptions on dwell times and other operational matters are conservative, and will be explored more deeply in a phase 2 report. I bring this up because ETA has a report giving more nuance on the FRA report, welcoming it and yet demanding that phase 2 take operational reforms more seriously. We believe, with further reforms to reduce peak dwell times within the current footprint of Penn Station, that much higher throughput than 32 trains per hour is possible, potentially the 48 that the North River Tunnels and Gateway tunnels are capable of. On the other hand, Streetsblog…