Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Unveils Commuter-First Vision for Penn Station and Revitalized Surrounding Neighborhood

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled her vision for a commuter-first Penn Station and revitalized surrounding neighborhood.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on this fabulous day here in the city of New York. I have some incredible people who've joined us today. Let me check who we have here.

First of all, a great friend and ally, tireless voice for her district in Albany and that is our Senator Liz Krueger. Senator Krueger, thank you for coming. We are also joined by Senator Leroy Comrie. Senator Comrie, great fighter for the people of Queens, Jamaica, thank you. Senator Anna Kaplan, another, these are all fighters. Just don't fight me. Senator John Brooks, thank you for coming in from Long Island. Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, I want to thank you for joining us here in and some of the bill signings for some of your legislation, and really happy to be seeing you here.

Tom Wright, the present and CEO of the Regional Plan Association. Tom, you'll be hearing from Tom in a couple of minutes. Janno Lieber, the acting chair and CEO of the MTA. Let's give a huge round of applause, Janno Lieber.

Kathy Wylde, the president and CEO of Partnership for New York City, amazing advocate for the business community. I want to thank Kathy for joining us here today. Daniel Biederman the president of the 34 Street Partnership is here, Daniel Biederman, thanks for being here.

Hope Knight, the president and CEO of Greater Jamaica Development Corporation and our nominee for president and CEO of Empire State Development Corporation, Hope.
Thank you for saying yes, Hope. I appreciate that.

Carlo Scissura, the president and CEO of the New York Building Congress is here. The area is here. Candis Tolliver, the vice president and political director of 32BJ SEIU. Thank you for all your support. Elizabeth Goldstein, the president of the Municipal Art Society of New York is here. So thank you all for coming.

This day has been a long time coming and I believe that we have the opportunity here to reimagine the entire future of Penn Station and the neighborhood. And we know that this area is the beating heart of our city. Everybody knows Penn Station, whether you live here, whether you've been a visitor, it is the busiest transit hub in North America, in the Western Hemisphere.

More people use Penn Station than all three airports combined. Pre-COVID, 600,000 people traveled through Penn Station every single day, but by 2038, our predictions tell us that that number will increase to 890,000 people coming through the exact same footprint. Yeah, that's a scary thought. Right?

Penn Station is the crossroads of New York for locals, commuters and visitors. It fuels economic activity and jobs and I believe that our post-COVID recovery hinges in large part on what we do next with infrastructure and economic development activity and to reenergize projects that should have occurred a long time ago.

When I first took office, I knew there were plans, a lot of concerns about a plan that was already been announced. There were plans from the local community. I come out of local government. I am hardwired to be responsible to local community desires and needs because those are the people who live there. This is their neighborhood.
What we do affects them the most. They need to be heard.

And I told my team, take a harder look at this plan. What can we do differently than what has already been recommended, proposed, or dictated to be happening under the past administration? So I said, let's talk to the community, let's focus on New Yorkers' priorities, and I was focused on two priorities. They're very simple. New Yorkers deserve a world-class transportation system and it should have a world-class facility with Penn Station. This community deserves it. The people who live there deserve it. And what I'm going to talk about is what my team found, our team working with MTA and Janno Lieber and his incredible team, what we found that we can do.

We found the answer. We found the possibilities and I'm very excited. We know how important mass transit is. It links us to jobs. It links us to our families. It links us to healthcare, sometimes educational opportunities. We know it connects people and I said, we've done a lot. You know, the Moynihan Station, it's beautiful, named after someone I was honored to work for, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It's beautiful, but it primarily serves Amtrak riders. So people coming from out of town, passing through, stopping here, maybe visiting for a couple of days, going back to the cave, they have a beautiful building to experience. I'm proud of that. That's really nice. Projects like the Oculus and the New Port Authority Bus Terminal which we'll do mostly bring out-of-staters to New York City. All very nice. Wonderful for them.

But Gateway and Penn expansion, yes, are both projects I fully support and we'll get them done, but they're primarily for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit riders. Right? So who are we serving with all these? Yes, it's good to do this. We're getting it done. But the existing Penn Station serves New Yorkers. Sixty percent of the people who use Penn Station are New Yorkers. They are our taxpayers. They are our citizens. And so given that they're the ones using it, I believe that they deserve a transformative experience as well.

And that's why we're going to start focusing on the existing Penn Station. This is my priority, and I believe it's the priority of New Yorkers. So a radical thought, but now we're putting New Yorkers first. We are prioritizing our commuters, and we know how hard it is to be a commuter in this area. Your daily commute should not be a daily grind, when you're coming in from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Long Island, and soon with Penn Access, this is great. Commuters from the Bronx and Westchester will also be able to come into Penn on Metro-North.

We'll get that all done, but the pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons. One is that we value our time with our families more than ever. We treasure this. For many people, they lost connection with family, and many of them lost family members. I believe that this post-pandemic world which we are shaping now has to focus more on quality of life issues and giving people time with families and loved ones and not having to deal with a commute that's longer than necessary or a commute that drops them into a place that is depressing. That's how simple this is in my mind.

We know that with the Penn Access, East Side Access, we'll cut down the commute time by 50 minutes from the East Bronx, giving people time back to their families. That allows a mom a little extra time to pack the kids' lunches, maybe even catch some of the kids' afterschool activities at the end of the day, these are things that are sacrificed now because of the time spent commuting.

I just rode the inaugural ride, Janno and I were there with our boots on at 7:00 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday morning, and we wanted to experience that first ride. Now, why am I the guinea pig here? What if something goes wrong? But it was a wonderful ride. I didn't wonder about that at all for more than a second. But we succeeded. We got there safely and I can confirm that this is going to be an experience that will have a wow factor, just about a year, a little more than a year from now, and that is open to the public. That is literally going to save people 40 minutes. What can you do with 40 minutes? That's a lot of time back in your life. It's a lot of time back in your life that right now is sacrificed trying to get to your jobs. So improving the quality of life for new Yorkers is my top priority. So, let's look at what we're dealing with now. You think about where I just came in from Ronkonkoma, looking at a spectacular project, transit-oriented-development, right at the train station, making up for a lot of mistakes that have been done over the last few generations. I think about a woman there this morning. She gets up crack of dawn, she wakes up in the dark. She packs the lunches gets on the train a long time later. She emerges in Penn station. And what does she experience? Darkness, depression, a crowded situation. Then she goes to her office and I don't know what her environment is likes. She's an office cleaner downtown, she works at a hotel or works in one of our buildings. Whatever that experience is, she wraps up per day by going back into darkness, back into a tunnel, back into a depressing situation, gets on that train has a long ride back, and she does it all over again the next day. Those are the people that I'm thinking about when we come up with transformational ideas.

So it's dark, it's cramped, it's like a cavern, it's uncomfortable. There's no natural light. Ceilings as low as seven feet, narrow passageways. And there aren't even enough ways to get down to the track level. If you can find them. I've gotten lost there. I've lost a daughter there, luckily I've found her, we got her back. But it is so depressing. It was built in 1968. And you know, we all talk about when Vice President Joe Biden spoke of LaGuardia. Calling it what you'd experience in a third world country. I don't need a president or vice president to tell me that this is not a first world or 21st century experience, right now, what our new Yorkers are having to endure. And we can change that.

So these are depressing pictures, it's confusing, it's cramped, it's crowded. There's not enough stairs. There's not enough escalators, not enough elevators. The track level. Today, we're talking about bringing sunshine and happiness to New Yorkers, as they deserve better. Instead of looking downward everybody looks down when they're in Penn station. I want them to look upward. I want them to experience light. I want them to experience an uplifting feeling that they're not getting right now. It's a new day, my friends and it's time for a new Penn Station. New Yorkers riding the Long Island Railroad, our subway, and our soon to be finished, Metro North, deserve to have world-class transportation, just like Moynihan, just like Grand Central, it's time for a Penn Station worthy of New Yorkers.

So our plan will transform the existing station into a single level train hall. What does that do? First of all, it gives us double circulation on the main boarding level. So you won't be as cramped as you are right now. We're talking sunlight, easier navigation, higher ceilings. We'll add 18 more escalators and stairs going from 73 to 91, we'll make it more accessible for people who need accessibility, people with mobility issues. Adding 11 more elevators going from 16 to 27, and we'll help move the riders off the platforms faster and safer with fewer pinch points and less congestion. So this is what it's going to look like. And it will show you more pictures in a second. Now this is existing, this existing East Transforce will be transformed.

We'll have higher ceilings. We'll be removing the upper level. That's how we're going to do it. This single level. Right now, we can't do this because there's an upper level. So I questioned, well, what's on the upper level that's so important that I can't blow it up and have sunlight come in? I found out its possible. There's nothing that we can't move that's on that upper level. That's the rethinking of this whole project. And we'll make sure that that occurs as part of our single level experience. And these caverns will just disappear. This will be an experience from the past. We'll have a single level train hall and we'll have on the Eastern side, a huge open space. This will be the size of Moynihan Hall and Grand Central Terminal, Great Hall, combined. Can you imagine that? The two of them combined into one beautiful space. 450 foot long skylight longer than Moynihan. And let the sun shine in. And you can see from over here at the integrated, into the new south Penn south expansion, we'll have new tracks and platforms connecting the new Hudson Tunnel where they'll be located. So we're making all those connections now.

By eliminating the ceiling on the lower level, we're going to transform the whole experience. And I also want to have, this will be great for people do this every day, but I want there to be a wow factor for people who are visiting for the first time. People come here or have certain expectations of New York City. They say they decided to come here to visit and bring their families. Especially after the pandemic, when everybody has been so trapped in their homes and places abroad, we didn't get the 63 million visitors that we're accustomed to in New York City. When people start coming back, when we get this done, I want people to say, "Wow, when I landed there, when I got to the trains, I got to go to Penn station, it was extraordinary." And they'll tell their friends about.

So on the west side, we'll have more of a space for circulation. We'll double this height of the ceiling as well, and we're going to make it a more positive, uplifting experience. These are great pictures, but this is a preliminary design. And let's talk about what's around. Currently trucks are serving events at Madison square garden. I've tried to cut through there a few times. It's pretty dangerous and cars lineup on 33rd street and other surrounding streets. Living around there, it's not fun. Right now this is typical experience. I think we can do better than this. A single train hall will allow MSG to move its loading operations inside, taking the trucks off the streets. How fantastic is that for the neighborhood? This will reduce traffic and pollution and the situation of idling trucks creating exhaust. It'll improve the experience for bicyclists and pedestrians, not to have to be jockeying around all the trucks that are there. So that is what the experience will look like.

So all told, it'll be a brand new station for New Yorkers. How long? Four to five years. Cost? Six or seven billion. And I know costs go up with time. That's why, my friends, I'm approaching this with a sense of urgency. I want this started and I want it done as soon as possible. And just as we have partners in Gateway, we have to have partners in fixing the existing Penn. And I'm looking forward to bringing together a Penn stakeholder advisory group dedicated to this project, to work with the community every step of the way. I want them to feel engaged that their voices are heard. Then when we can, we'll take actions to remedy anything, they bring to our attention that we may have overlooked. That's what engagement is all about. It's not a token effort. It's not checking the box. So we created an advisory committee that we deal and move on. It's a whole new day in government as well.

This will be a meaningful contributor to our process. So also what about the neighborhood around Penn? Improving Penn station means improving the area as well. This is a neighborhood. This is a community, a place where people live. They work, they play, they walk with their kids. It's the home to thousands of New Yorkers and we need development to fund Penn Station just as I described. We also need to support our sustainable, transit-oriented growth, but I believe that a scaled-down plan can generate the revenue. It does not have to be the scale it is right now. Does not have to be. We can scale it down and still generate the revenue we need to fund the transformation of Penn station while benefiting the surrounding neighborhood. This community deserves better and they will get better. So we've listened to the community. Here's some of the things we've done: lowering the building heights, reducing the density by 1.4 million square feet. Building residential units, 1800, including 540 permanent affordable units, adding space for community and social services. And the exciting part is we'll be creating jobs. Something that we need to continue doing as we come through this pandemic.

A lot of people are displaced from their current jobs. And we're going to be having over 50,000 good paying construction jobs as well as permanent jobs. So this will be greener and more sustainable and transit oriented commercial growth. All of our buildings will be built to be fully electric to help us go carbon neutral - that's important to me as well.

And I believe that this is going to encourage more people when they have a positive experience, they'll encourage more people to leave their cars at home if they're considering riding and they'll say, you know what? This is really a spectacular experience. I want to be a transit rider and leave my car at home. That'll help protect our environment as well. We'll also be providing services for homeless people in the neighborhood as well, working very closely with the city on a plan to establish that.

So we'll make it better connections for the four subway stations that connect to Penn. We'll have a lot of underground connections, which is great when it's raining out or snowing or records, hurricanes, as we've experienced a few times. And also these impossibly crowded sidewalks, we can eliminate that by having more entrances, some people underground, some above ground and just having more diverse crowds, just spread it out in different places. So we won't have these experiences any longer, we'll be addressed the crowding of the streets and entrances.

So a new underground pedestrian concourse will connect Penn all the way to Herald Square, north to 34th street. And we'll require every single new building there to have new transit entrances, all this connection from buildings, people can pop up, go to their jobs, go back down. They don't have to go out in the elements if they don't want to. It'll be easier, more pleasant to get to your train, more like Grand Central, the way we can do that now.

We're doubling the entrances to Penn with eight in-building entries to Penn, 10 in-building subway entries. Eight new escalators, two new elevators, and widened stairways. And also, this is my favorite too, the outdoor space. This feels like New York and the way New York should be. Look at that. The community asked us to prioritize the public space around Penn Station and we said we will. We're adding eight new acres of public space. We'll establish a public realm task force modeled after the East Midtown Rezoning Governing Group, which is very effective. They'll develop a plan to prioritize what they want to see in this space as well. And we'll have revenue set aside from the early revenues generated by the new real estate development to fund these community projects. This will not come last. This will come first and we'll work with the city, as I mentioned, and develop innovative approaches and onsite services for dealing with - to better serve the homeless population.

You getting excited? This looks fun, doesn't it? Back to the streets again, another problem is car congestion and pollution. What I want to do is shift the focus away from cars. There are places when we need to have cars, we need to drop off people who are taking the train. People with disabilities need to be dropped off. Senior citizens need to get dropped. I get that. But for those more limited cases, we can have a sharing of the street, but also more public space to make it just more inviting and more open and more beautiful. So we're going to widen the sidewalks, build new protected bike lanes, increased bike parking, and create shared streets and slow the car traffic while allowing for pickup or drop off.

So you see the streetscapes. I love streetscapes. You will have, I don't see any benches in these pictures. I love park benches. We'll have the greeting in the streets - also just better lighting. You know, when you think about creating a sense of security and safety. Brighter lights in the neighborhood. When people come out, it gets dark at 4:30 in December. You come out in the darkness, you want to know that you're feeling safe, more light will do that. So have beautiful streetlights. So that'll accomplish that goal. So the converting the existing streetscape as well, and north of Penn will be major pedestrian friendly quarter going from this to that.

That's beautiful. That's cause for round of applause, I love this picture. Little sparkle in the trees. Beautiful. This is what we deserve. I mean, this, this gets me excited when I see products like this the before and after, and there'll come a time when people never will have known what the before was like. Future generations will assume that we always were this visionary. But we're being this visionary this year and right now, and this is why I'm really excited to have the support of all the people here, our elected officials, our community partners, because this is something that we need to do now. 33rd street will have limited traffic from 6 to 9, turning the street into a better vista for looking at our beautiful streetscapes.

We'll have a greener pedestrian friendly corridor. Magnificent. And this would be a benefit again for the neighbors. People come out of the train, they walk around, get their drink, a cup of coffee, and the neighborhood would really benefit from this as well. So this is a new way to enhance our skyline with sustainable buildings. It'll lay the groundwork for our continued economic growth for decades. And, you know, there's already signs that were rebounding. You know, we took a big hit. We took a big hit during the pandemic. A lot of people have not yet come back to the Midtown office space, but this is an opportunity to use this time where things are a little bit slower, but I believe they'll come back, to begin this work now.

And this scaled-down project will still generate billions of dollars for us in new revenue to fund our future projects as well. So this will fund the reconstruction, if future expansion, as well as the public realm around it. So this will all work.

So basically this is going to be a major contributor to creating a more livable city. People want to know what our city is going to be like after the pandemic. This, my friends, is the beginning of what it's going to look like. It's more livable. It's going to focus on New Yorkers. It's going to right the wrongs of the past finally. It's going to jumpstart something that should've been done a long time ago. It's forward-looking for decades to come. And we will reimagine the entire New York City living experience and the commuting experience and the working experience with projects like these. And I believe in New York. And I believe that New York can do better and this is an important step forward.

One more thought. Has anybody ever asked the question why we have the largest transit hub in the Western hemisphere named after a neighboring state? Nobody asks these questions. Right? First question on my mind, why the name Penn Station, the other side, Pennsylvania Station. I believe that a new station for New York should be named for a New Yorker or something to do with how iconic New York State is and how amazing it is. So we'll be focusing on this too. So there'll come a time when people will say I never even heard of Penn Station. This is going to be new. It's exciting. And it's how we're going to bring in a whole new era of excitement, energy, vitality, and let people know that we have the confidence to build now. That future generations, I believe will appreciate that we did, but certainly the people who live in this state deserve nothing but the best. This will deliver them the best.

So thank you very much.

At this point, I'd like Tom Wright, the President and CEO of the Regional Plan Association to give some of his reflections on this.