NYC’s biggest power brokers are circling Penn Station

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This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.

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New York City’s most powerful people are on the fast track to a very big battle over Penn Station. 

For decades, train riders have endured the cramped, overcrowded disgrace that is North America’s busiest transit hub.

Penn Station — once a glorious monument to America’s railroad prowess — was torn down in the 1960s and buried beneath Madison Square Garden, shrouding a light-filled space in darkness. Its demolition became a symbol of governmental neglect of mass transit infrastructure across the United States. 

For years, New York’s power brokers have been on a quixotic quest to restore the station to its former glory. That effort entered a new chapter last week when U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appointed Andy Byford to lead the station’s redevelopment as a special adviser to Amtrak’s board. 

The move put Byford, an unusually popular transit official who earned the nickname “Train Daddy” during his stint at the MTA from 2018 to 2020, at the center of a potentially historic New York City power struggle.

The clash pits President Donald Trump and Byford against Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA, led by Chair Janno Lieber. The cast of characters also includes billionaire developer Steven Roth (who owns real estate around Penn) and James Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks and MSG. Add to the mix former MTA Chair Tom Prendergast, who is in charge of the Gateway Program that’s building new tunnels to Penn Station. 

Then there’s current mayoral front-runner Andrew Cuomo, whose campaign centers on his work steering big public works projects, like the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport, during his time as governor. 

Everyone with a shred of influence in this town wants a piece of Penn Station. It’ll be up to Byford to lead the negotiations over who gets what in the project, which will supposedly be built through a public-private partnership. 

“We’re ensuring every dollar is spent wisely to create a transit hub all Americans can take pride in,” Duffy said in a statement. 

Byford’s history in New York adds to the drama. He resigned from the MTA in protest five years ago during a very public feud with Cuomo, who mandated a reorganization of the MTA that turned over Byford’s control of transit construction projects to Lieber. 

There was no love lost between the two: Byford at the time lambasted the move, while Lieber and his team criticized Byford’s management of subway signal upgrades.

Now, Byford is taking oversight of the Penn Station project from Lieber.

Lieber had already redeveloped the station’s Long Island Rail Road concourse, adding new entrances and making the area a more pleasant place. He’d planned a similar design for Penn Station’s Amtrak and NJ Transit areas.

Despite their beef, Lieber and Byford will need to work together on the project: The MTA is Penn Station’s largest tenant. 

On Wednesday, Lieber said “It’s good news Andy Byford is taking control of the Penn Station project.”

Byford may also need to work with his other New York nemesis, Cuomo.

The city’s next mayor will hold sway over MSG’s permit to operate over Penn Station, which expires in 2028. If elected, Cuomo would also be involved in negotiations with Roth, the CEO of Vornado, which owns much of the commercial real estate around Penn Station. As governor, Cuomo pushed tax breaks for a slate of new skyscrapers that would be built by Vornado — an idea Hochul endorsed before Roth abandoned it in 2022.

The web of connections on the Penn Station corkboard gets even more tangled. 

Mayor Eric Adams’ First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro — who ran the city this week while Adams was in Las Vegas at a Bitcoin conference — is a longtime lawyer for Dolan. Mastro continues to give pro-bono legal counsel to Dolan in a lawsuit brought by former Knicks legend Charles Oakley against MSG. 

All of this comes as Prendergast and the Gateway Development Commission builds a new set of train tunnels beneath the Hudson River, which in the next decade will need to connect to Penn Station. To carry more trains through those tunnels, transit planners say the station will either need to be expanded — or NJ Transit and LIRR services will need to be combined and run through the station instead of stopping and turning around at Penn. 

Byford has previously spoken in favor of “through-running” NJ Transit and LIRR trains at Penn Station. But can anyone – even New York City’s beloved “Train Daddy” – manage all these egos?

NYC transportation news this week

Listen here:

A big ol’ budget. The MTA board yesterday approved a $65 billion five-year construction plan that aims to rescue New York City’s mass transit infrastructure from the brink of collapse.

The capital plan includes money for 1,500 new train cars, making 60 stations accessible, installing new turnstiles that would prevent fare evasion, and $2.75 billion for Gov. Kathy Hochul's pet project: the Interborough Express.

Cell service on the G train. The northern half of the train line is set to get cell service in the tunnels as early as this fall, the MTA said Wednesday.

A newly resilient section of East River Park. A section of the waterfront south of the Williamsburg Bridge has reopened — and it’s now 8 to 10 feet taller and conceals a floodwall.

Bronx greenway underway. Construction has begun on a new 7-mile greenway that includes 4 miles of protected bike lanes connecting to the Harlem River waterfront and other boroughs. 

A win for congestion pricing. A Manhattan federal judge wrote yesterday that the Trump administration can’t force the MTA to shut down congestion pricing, saying that would “harm the public by depriving it of the benefits the tolling program creates.”

All aboard some old-timey trains. The MTA and New York Transit Museum will bring decades-old trains back into limited service in South Brooklyn on June 7 and 8.

Listen to us talk about all this! Download our app and tune in to “All Things Considered” around 4 p.m. today. And catch up on last week’s segment in case you missed it.

Curious Commuter

Have a question for us? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!

Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free here.

Question from Brian in Brooklyn
“When will the MTA enable riders to access their OMNY rides and transaction history?”

Answer
Subway and bus riders who use a reloadable OMNY card instead of their phone or credit card to pay their fares used to be able to log into their account online and see the stations where they paid their fare.

But the MTA took that feature offline two years ago after some privacy advocates raised concerns the trip history feature could put people at risk, particularly domestic violence victims trying to avoid their abusers. For now, MTA spokesperson Eugene Resnick said the agency is still “working to restore the online trip history feature with necessary privacy protections.” 

Resnick offered no timeline for the return of the feature — but it’s worth noting that OMNY is slated to get more and more users by the end of the year, when the MTA plans to stop selling MetroCards.