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Note: this article was last updated on 5/4/26. Recent developments may have occurred.
Penn Station needs an upgrade. The ceilings are claustrophobically low, there are no places to sit, and it’s really old and dirty. Luckily, there are plans for the renovation of Penn Station. On May 4 of this year, Penn Station chose a contractor to begin planning for renovations. The Echo interviewed Amtrak’s special advisor, Andy Byford, about these renovations to learn more. Nicknamed “Train Daddy,” Byford has lots of past experience with transit; he worked for the Toronto Metro, the London Tube, and even our very own New York City Subway. Today he is working with Amtrak and their plans for Penn Station.
Penn Station, (Short for Pennsylvania), originally opened in 1910, and slowly gained popularity until 1945 when it peaked, then slowly declined to the increasingly affordable air travel available. Thus in 1962, plans were made for part of Penn to be demolished to make room for a stadium, Madison Square Garden, but that left Penn to be moved entirely underground in 1963, and MSG was fully finished in 1968. This led to the company behind Penn Station merging with New York Central Railroads also in 1968, to become Penn Central. But this was not good news because just two years later, Penn Central, the greater corporation, filed for bankruptcy. This is where AMTRAK comes in, because in 1976 up until today, AMTRAK has ownership of Penn. And since moving underground, it has received no significant renovations, other than the addition of Moynihan train hall, which is barely a part of Penn Station. So after half a decade, underground Penn has not gotten an upgrade, hence Byford and Amtrak’s plan for one.
This interview has been edited for clarity, and was conducted on March 20.
Zeke Siff: How big of a task is rebuilding Penn Station?
Andy Byford: Sure, it is an immense task. While everyone agrees that the current Penn Station is suboptimal, gathering all the disparate views and getting everyone to agree on what the solution should look like is very difficult. Difficulty number two is raising the money to get it done because this won’t be a cheap job. We’re talking billions of dollars. Number three, is going to be rebuilding the station while it’s still running. You know, we [Amtrak] don’t have the luxury of a brand new green-field site. This is a brown-field [previously developed] site, and 600,000 people use the station every day, which is more than Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia [Airports] combined.
ZS: What sets your plan apart from the others?
AB: We have the federal government all over this project. They really want to see it done; up to and including the president himself. He’s a New Yorker. He’s a developer. He wants this to happen. And I think the other thing that differentiates it is the way we’re going about it, which is a [public-private partnership] master developer competition. So we will be choosing from a competitive bid, a master developer to progressively design the project, and to work in partnership with Amtrak to get it done.
ZS: What are some of the disputes between your plan and the other plans and why?
AB: Oh, there’s already so much dispute between the plans. The only way, in my opinion, this job’s going to get done, is with a combination of federal funding, city and state funding (from both New Jersey and New York), and private investment. That’s how I think [we]’ll get the capital stacked together. And in terms of the disputes, there’s a tension between the railroads represented as to what the final product should look like. But the good news is we’re all starting from the same position, namely, that no one thinks the existing station is in any way, shape, or form good enough… It’s hopelessly overcrowded. Particularly on the New Jersey side, where you have that mad scramble to go get a train and try and force open a very heavy door. There’s not enough escalators, there’s not enough elevators. Yeah, the place is a disgrace to New York, to be honest, and it needs to be rectified.
ZS: As a sophomore, am I going to see anything new with Penn Station by the time I graduate high school, or college, or beyond?
AB: Well, that’s the plan, Zeke… We are currently completely on track to hit a deadline of May 4 to get submissions back from the three bidders we’ve invited to make proposals. So there’s an RFP [request for proposal] process that’s actually running at the moment. So those bidders will send in their bids and say what their vision looks like, [and] how they’re going to pay for it. By the end of May, I need to go before the Amtrak board. Once the evaluation committee—of which I’m a member—has considered the three bids, we’ll make a recommended option to the Amtrak board. In which case we’ll sign a contract in June of this year to then work with the preferred bidder through the end of 2027. And if by then we’ve got a good enough design and we’ve got financial close (loans can be taken out for project), and commercial close (agreement on risks), then we will put a shovel in the ground at the end of 2027…hopefully we’ll be talking about five years or so to a brand-new, state-of-the-art Penn Station, of which everyone can be proud.
ZS: What is the nature of the bidders and what they want to contribute to Penn Station?
AB: There [are] three bidders on the public record. One’s called Fengate, which is backed by Macquarie Bank, an Australian Bank. Then there’s Halmar International, which is, again, a consortium that got Vornado, a property company, and Madison Square Garden themselves involved. And then the third one is called Grand Penn Partnerships, [of which] Alex Washburn is the lead person on that. We have a fair inkling of what two of the designs will be: one’s predicated on MSG staying put, and one’s predicated on the garden moving.
ZS: Is there going to be enough room for the 600,000 passengers a day that pass through Penn, which might even increase in the future?
AB: So what’s interesting is that before COVID, the station was unbelievably busy, and then when COVID hit, a lot of people were saying, well, we don’t need to expand Penn now because people in the future are going to be doing zoom meetings. They are not going to go into the office. Well, that’s proven not to be true. New York’s actually booming now and there’s a demand for more office space and particularly high grade office space. And, people are flocking back to work, they’ve been told to come back 4 or 5 days a week. So, without question, we need to expand Penn’s capacity. And that’s why we’re looking at all sorts of different options. And one of the drawbacks at the station is [that] there’s very limited escalators and elevators, which means that clearing the platforms once a train arrives actually takes quite a bit of time… And that causes a delay because until you’ve really cleared the platform, you can’t let people onto the platform, which frustrates customers. We’ve [also] got very old-fashioned equipment there. It’s station safe, but it’s wearing out the ventilation equipment, the fire safety equipment. It’s on its last legs. It’s really old. It needs to be completely overhauled. And again, that’s part of the job that needs to be done.
Regarding what Byford spoke about the timeline for Penn Station, Halmar International was actually announced to be the winning bidder on May 20th. Notably, the plan includes a grand entrance on 8th avenue, and has goals of expanding track capacity, adding new retail, and keeping Madison Square Garden in place.
Amtrak plans for Penn Station to begin construction in a year and a half, which means we will see big changes coming for New York City. One big question that still remains is the fate of Madison Square Garden. There is a huge controversy between keeping it put and moving it, which really contributes to why the plans are what they are. The Penn station bidders released their plans five days early on April 30, but no public knowledge was gained then. Proving to be on track, on May 20, Byford announced Halmar International as the winning bidder on May 20th Notably, the plan includes a grand entrance on 8th avenue, and has goals of expanding track capacity, adding new retail, and keeping Madison Square Garden in place. All New Yorkers can do is slowly watch while Penn Station becomes worthy of New York once more.
