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Trump’s Penn Station rebuild opens door to unifying New York’s railroads
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Stephen Nessen
Published May 4, 2026
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Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
By
Stephen Nessen
Published May 4, 2026
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For generations, New York City transportation planners have dreamed of a unified, regional transit system that would allow commuters to ride from New Jersey to Long Island without transferring. Gone would be the days of buying separate tickets from separate agencies run by separate states.
The idea to unite New York and New Jersey’s busiest railroads has long been dismissed by elected officials on both sides of the Hudson River for logistical and political reasons. But now the time may finally come. As President Donald Trump pushes ahead with a federally run renovation of Penn Station and crews build a new set of rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River, supporters say there’s a rare opportunity to reorganize the entire rail network.
Most of the attention to Trump’s redevelopment of the nation’s busiest train station has focused on converting its labyrinthine layout into an architectural marvel filled with natural light. One plan under consideration would move Madison Square Garden across the street. But the much-needed aesthetic improvements to Penn have arguably distracted from a more pressing problem: In the coming decade, Penn Station is going to run out of room.
The $16 billion Gateway project that’s constructing two new rail tunnels between New York and New Jersey is slated to wrap in 2035, doubling the number of trains that could move between the two states each hour from 24 to 48. Metro-North trains will also begin arriving at the station in 2030, when the MTA expects to finish its Penn Access project.
Where will all those trains go?
Andy Byford, the former NYC Transit president now in charge of Amtrak’s redesign of Penn, says “through-running” could be the answer. Instead of having NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road trains stop at the Midtown hub and turn around, they would pass through in a new regional system.
“If the trains spend less time on the platform, then you can run more trains through,” Byford said in November. “There are lots of reasons why I think through-running should be explored.”
Byford should know. He previously ran London’s transit system, where he oversaw the completion of a major new rail line, the Elizabeth Line, which uses through-running.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy group, in 2022 published a report laying out how through-running at Penn Station could create a regional rail network.
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
Amtrak trains already "through-run” at Penn Station, using it as a major stop along the Northeast Corridor.
Every weekday, nearly two dozen NJ Transit trains that roll to Penn during the morning rush also through-run. After dropping off passengers, they continue east through Amtrak’s tunnels, and wait in Queens at Sunnyside Yards until it’s time to head back to New Jersey for the evening rush.
Likewise, the LIRR lays up dozens of trains every day on Manhattan’s West Side Yards, where they sit in storage until it’s time to take Long Islanders home from work.
If those rail networks were integrated, a commuter could in theory take a train from Newark to Montauk, or New Haven to Secaucus. It’s the stuff of dreams.
When Trump took control of the Penn Station rebuild from the MTA last year, he assigned Byford and Amtrak to select a master builder to complete the project. A winner is slated to be picked later this month. But Trump also gave Byford 18 months to commission a new study on through-running at Penn Station, which is due later this year.
None of the commuters Gothamist interviewed at Penn Station for this story had ever heard of through-running. But Glen Ridge, New Jersey resident Rob Fardon liked what he heard.
“ Are you saying you could take a New Jersey Transit train … and put it through into the Long Island railroad tunnels?” asked Fardon, who frequently passes through Penn Station to catch an LIRR train. “That sounds good. What's the catch?”
There are quite a few.
Creating a new regional “through-running” system could require re-engineering sections of Penn Station’s tracks and platforms. Each railroad’s trains and equipment would need to be made compatible. The governments of New York and New Jersey would have to cooperate in the creation of a new regional commuter railroad system. New agreements would need to be negotiated with labor unions.
A report published last month by the influential nonprofit Regional Plan Association argued the idea of through-running is infeasible. It said Penn Station’s platforms are too narrow for riders to disembark and board trains fast enough for through-running to be efficient.
Regular riders at Penn are familiar with the current setup, where they only learn of track assignments after the platforms have cleared. The arrangement results in crowds staring at screens to learn their track, then rushing to the stairs in a mad scrambles for seats.
An engineering report from 2024 said the platforms at Penn Station would need to be widened to make through-running possible. The report said the current ones are too small to handle crowds of riders getting on and off trains at the same time.
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
The new Regional Plan Association report rehashed several points from a study commissioned by Amtrak, NJ Transit and the MTA in 2024. That study, conducted by the engineering firm WSP, found the best way to expand capacity at Penn Station would be to tear down a block of Midtown and expand the transit hub south. The idea was proposed as part of the Gateway program, but has been shot down by both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Byford.
The WSP study said that expanding the station’s platforms to enable through-running would require moving pillars that hold up Madison Square Garden, and a disruptive construction process that would last more than a decade.
Byford didn’t agree.
“It is not the case that you have to remove all the pillars,” Byford told reporters during an Association for a Better New York breakfast in November. “There are things that can be done in terms of physical changes to the station that would still enable more through-running.”
Liam Blank, chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee at the City Club of New York who’s studied the concept, backed Byford. He called through-running cost effective, doable and vital to New York’s economy.
“ The way that the transportation system is currently set up, it’s optimized for getting everybody into Midtown Manhattan for a 9-to-5 office job, and the economy has shifted in terms of where the jobs are located and also what time people are working,” said Blank. “Transitioning to a more regional rail operation would provide more regular service in both directions across the region. More like a subway type service, not as frequent, but more dependable.”
Penn Station was completed in 1910, along with connecting tunnels beneath the Hudson and East rivers. The Gateway program is bringing a new set of tunnels to New Jersey.
Amtrak
Jeff Klein, general chairman of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that represents LIRR workers, said combining New York and New Jersey’s main railroads wouldn’t be easy.
“I wouldn't say it'd be an impossible task, but it certainly would be quite an endeavor,” Klein said. “ Our members come to work every day. They want to work, they want to be productive and they want to contribute to the system any way they can.”
But if railroad officials manage to overcome the legal, labor, engineering and logistical challenges, it could make life a lot easier for the 600,000 riders who use Penn Station every weekday.
Sarah Romagnoli, who recently went on a mass transit journey from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to JFK Airport, pined for a more seamless trip. As she switched from an NJ Transit train to a LIRR train at Penn Station, she said the idea of through-running would be “a game changer for the entire industry” and compared the current system to the days before E-ZPass, when every state had its own toll booths.
“Every time we used to have to stop on the Garden State and throw in 35 cents,” Romagnoli said. “I thought, ‘This is a big waste of everybody's time.’”
Tagged
Politics
manhattan
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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