Moynihan Station: Not Quite There

Yesterday, New Jersey Transit announced that they would become a tenant at the new Moynihan Station west of current Penn Station. While this is great news for the development (after all, what's a station without any transit?), this just falls short of everything Moynihan Station could be. Amtrak, this summer, already declined to be the anchor of the station, and the LIRR decided to stay put in Penn Station as well. I'm not going to delve into any Jersey-bashing, this isn't about that. NJ Transit is important to New York. This demonstrates the fact that New Jersey, whether we like it or not, is crucial to the development of Manhattan.

When Moynihan Station was first announced, I was excited by the fact that New York would once again have a great, beautiful train hub on the West Side. I've only seen old Penn Station in pictures, but I know that today's Penn Station is a disaster in comparison to its once glorious days as a symbol of the city. The problem with Moynihan Station as it is now planned is that it would only contain one mode of extraurban transit. The station will not be a hub, but instead an endpoint for NJ Transit. The benefit of having several modes of transit in one place is that this adds to the "usability" of a city. It is not only convenient to house Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, LIRR, and the subway in one location, but it creates a new place for some sort of social gathering among people from all over who share at least one thing in common: Manhattan, and the commute to Moynihan Station.