| I like this idea as much as I like some of the others I've heard over the years. I was a daily NJ Transit commuter for almost 8 years but am now down to twice a week. Upgrades to Penn Station are as needed as are upgrades to the rest of our nations infrastructure. But to me, therein lies the problem. Infrastructure. Something our country seems hellbent on destroying through neglect. I would love to see one of these big "fix Penn Station" projects be made into a reality and actually have the intended affect, but the cynical part of me (which seems to grow a bit every birthday) simply can't be brought to believe I'll see it happen anytime in the next couple decades. To me Penn Station as it exists today is a prime example of how we've come to treat our vital infrastructure. On an average morning it takes 5+ minutes to get off the platform because it's normal for two, or three, rush hour trains to be unloaded onto a single platform back-to-back which results in thousands of people trying to squeeze up four or five small staircases. Looking around the platform the concrete is cracked, some of it creaks when you walk over it, there are huge chunks of concrete missing everywhere. Lights are constantly out, even when they're on its perpetually dark, everything is covered in a layer of filth. The rest is the same. Cracked walls and ceilings. Filth, trash, stink, and overcrowding everywhere. Perpetually bad lighting. One good delay for any of the transit systems that converge under Penn and it becomes impossible to move as thousands of people stand around hoping for their train to arrive. On the NJ Transit side track numbers aren't posted ahead of time. If you're lucky you might get ~10 minutes notice but during rush hour it's normal for tracks to be posted minutes before departure. So you get train fulls of people rushing back and forth to make it to the few stairs or escalators (which are usually going up even when trains down on the platform are boarding) to get to their train on time. And despite all this Penn Station is vitally important to the area. NJ and NYC's economies benefit immeasurably from it. Even as far as Philadelphia, DC, and Boston. Yet, there it rots and crumbles. For decades. And the best we can do so far is hope for some more fancy computer renderings of something that maybe could make things better. And while we wait delays become more frequent, trains and stations get more crowded, things continue to fall apart, and the costs continue to rise. |
It's possible, but folks in NYC do seem more used to political inertia and cynical resignation.
(http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/03/25/geology-and-art-co...)