Comments on: New ARC Design: Smaller Station, Larger Crowds

By: ARC: 100 Years Later, An Attempt to Re-Conquer Gotham « New Penn Station

ARC: 100 Years Later, An Attempt to Re-Conquer Gotham « New Penn Station — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:50:31 +0000

[...] Tri-State Transportation Campaign is concerned about pedestrian overflow on the already overcrowded sidewalks around 34th St – which sounds to us like another reason to [...]

By: Penn Commuters May Reclaim Pedestrian Tunnel From Rats « Mobilizing the Region

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:45:00 +0000

[...] traffic on the sidewalks surrounding the block. We are sure that the results will confirm what other studies have shown: that the sidewalks and crosswalks are dangerously overburdened. The opening of the [...]

By: Bob Olmsted

Bob Olmsted — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:35:24 +0000

The feasibility of reopening the old “Gimbel’s” passageway, which is under the south sidewalk of 33rd St, not 32nd St, clearly should be seriously considered. It is in bad shape and needs significanbt rehab which someone would have to pay for. It is too narrow for noving walks. It would be difficult to make the west end ADA compliant. But it doesn’t help the ARC station much which will have its own connection to Herald Square subway stations.

By: 1,100 Pedestrians a Minute? Just Another Day at Penn Station. « Mobilizing the Region

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:55:36 +0000

[...] and private developments will further increase foot traffic in the area. Not least of these is the ARC Tunnel project that will double NJ Transit capacity to Midtown Manhattan and expand Penn Station below [...]

By: Ralph Braskett

Ralph Braskett — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:13:19 +0000

ARC IS A BAD, EXPENSIVE IDEA! Pedestrian congestion + worse subway connections, especially to 8th ave E train are just a start.
Grand Central is still 2 subway rides away; yet
70% of NJT rail riders want to be within a
10 minute walk to Grand Central. The new 34th
station is a terrorist attractor as well; it is
dangerous to have diesel engines 19 stories underground.
This project has the look of another Central Artery boondoggle with NJ taxpayers & the feds
(that is us) paying & paying for a bad idea.
Extending the #7 train to Secaucus with 1/2 trains going to the far west side & 1/2 to Secaucus provides more for less–esp. when the
#7 gets a modern signal system enabling 40tph.
That means an empty 11car #7 every 3 minutes in
the peak hours. Ramps would be built from the
NJ Turnpike so bus riders(more numerous than
rail riders) could benefit too. A stop at
Lincoln Harbor would feed HBLRT & Bergen bus riders onto the #7 as well.
For more details, see subwaytosecaucus.com.
Ralph Braskett

By: Clark Morris

Clark Morris — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:29:50 +0000

All new rail development should have through routing in mind. NJT and the MTA should work together so that NO NJT train terminates in Manhattan. I realize that this will mean unprecedented cooperation on equipment. It will mean modifying the M7 sets to add pantograph equipped cars. It will mean some difficult dealing with the various unions. It will mean a higher discipline in operations. However it will also mean better service and more capacity. It may cut down on people driving from Long Island to New Jersey for work (or vice versa). The high cost of both the THE and Long Island East Side Access should tell us it is worth looking at making better use of existing facilities as well as better integration.

By: Bill Vigrass, WRU MB

Bill Vigrass, WRU MB — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:23:40 +0000

I believe that the lack of a connection into PennStation is far more than a minor inconvenience. It would be a lifesaver, literally, if either the old tunnels or the new tunnels were made inoperative by any means whatever such as terrorism. The latter has odds of more than zero. Think about it.
“billincherryhill”
Bill Vigrass, occasional NJTRail rider.

By: bob

bob — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:16:40 +0000

Extending the 7 to NJ is a good idea (and decades old) but it serves an entirely different market than ARC will and is not a replacement. I’d like to see the 42nd St Light Rail too, but that has nowhere near the capacity of 25 commuter trains per hour…and doesn’t provide service deep into NJ.

Pedestrian issues can be solved once one gives up on the idea that cars take priority. Look at the daytime pedestrian mall downtown – that works.

But losing the flexibility of the connection to the existing PS platforms will hurt, even if those problems don’t show up in the EIS.

By: George Haikalis

George Haikalis — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:48:36 +0000

The ARC project is way off the track. The earlier DEIS, now barely a year old, found that a track connection from the new Hudson River tunnels to existing tracks and platforms at Penn Station was feasible. This could be the first phase of a plan to link Penn Station and Grand Central, described as “Alternative G” in the ARC Major Investment Study. NJ Transit should go back to last year’s DEIS, and simply drop the Deep Cavern station portion of the plan. Instead, in cooperation with MTA, NJ Transit can begin the detailed environmnetal analysis needed to advance Alterntive G.

By: Chris Bujara

Chris Bujara — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:38:37 +0000

ARC is a bad joke that gets worse and worse. In addition to a smaller, deeper station and more pedestrian congestion, the project now offers little in terms of redundancy, and would be no help whatsoever in mitigating delays caused by trains stuck in the tunnels. The promised single-seat-ride relies on technology nobody seems to want to build, and that NJT couldn’t possibly maintain. The region really needs something better than a tunnel to nowhere.

Extending the 7 to Secaucus sounds like a great idea! I’d much rather hop a fast, frequent, 7 train from Secaucus straight to Grand Central, instead of getting dumped in a cavern half a mile away from my office and having to continue to deal with NJT breakdowns and delays. It would offer great east and west side subway connections, and make getting to regional sporting events a lot easier, too. I’ll bet NYC would have gotten the Olympic bid if plans for such an extension had been on the table.