
The Long, Sordid History of New York’s Penn Station - wallflower
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/29/penn-station-robert-caro-073564
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jcranmer
> Penn Station is the second most heavily trafficked transit hub in the world,
> trailing only Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station.

That is... not true. From Wikipedia's numbers, it services ~110 million people
annually. Gare du Nord, by contrast, handles twice that. There's several more
stations in Europe that are busier than Penn Station, and that's completely
ignoring all the other Japanese stations.

So what metric is the source using to even countenance such a statement being
true? Double-counting subway transfers?

~~~
elfexec
> From Wikipedia's numbers, it services ~110 million people annually.

If you look at [Note 2], that number only includes NJTransit, LIRR and Amtrak.
It doesn't count NYC metro ( which is bizarre since Penn Station is a major
stop on the NYC metro and NYC metro handles much more people than NJTransit,
LIRR and Amtrak combined ) or the PATH.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_statio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_stations_in_North_America)

I have hard time believing that zurich or many of these european stations
handle more traffic than penn station considering how much larger NYC, NYC
Metro and the tourism to NYC is compared to any of these european cities.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_statio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_stations_in_Europe)

I can understand Shinjuku Station being #1, but zurich handling more people
than penn station? I'm not sure about that.

~~~
jcranmer
Note that a decent fraction of the subway riders at Penn Station are going to
be transfers to/from NJT/LIRR/Amtrak, so naïvely adding all the numbers is
going to double-count a lot of people. But even if you use that double-counted
number, you're only hitting ~160-170 million people. Remove the double-
counting, and you're going to be down below Zurich's 150 million easily.

~~~
elfexec
> Note that a decent fraction of the subway riders at Penn Station are going
> to be transfers to/from NJT/LIRR/Amtrak

Definitely. But the vast majority of them are going to be NYC Metro riders,
not transfers.

> Remove the double-counting, and you're going to be down below Zurich's 150
> million easily.

Right. Lets look at the numbers.

NYC population is 8.4 million

Zurich population is 420,000

NYC metropolitan area population is 21 million.

Zurich metropolitan area population is 1.8 million.

NYC had 62 million tourists in 2018.

Given these numbers I find it hard to believe that a zurich station has more
traffic than penn station. Granted that we have Port Authority and Grand
Central drawing traffic away from Penn Station, but even so, it's pretty hard
for me to believe these traffic numbers given the population disparity.

~~~
jcranmer
> Given these numbers I find it hard to believe that a zurich station has more
> traffic than penn station.

This is my best guess for why people keep repeating such blatantly false
claims as "Penn Station is the second busiest station in the world"\--people
just can't imagine that America is _that_ bad at something.

So, there are several factors going on here. First, NYC has two major rail
termini (Penn and Grand Central), and a couple of other stations that's going
to pull people off the train if they're not working in Downtown or Midtown
Manhattan. Zurich has just the one I believe. Granted, Paris also has several
termini.

Another factor is the lack of intercity rail travel in the US. There's 3-4
trains an hour (each direction) on the NEC, and at best one an hour to Albany.
Zurich has at least 4 lines each delivering 4 trains an hour (each direction).
A larger share of the travel to Zurich is happening via rail than to NYC.

The biggest factor, though, is that US commuter rail is just _that_ bad. It is
pretty much designed, in the US, to let people from the outlying suburbs drive
to the rail station park and take the train to their 9-5 job downtown. If you
work different hours, say 4-12, you're screwed. If you don't work downtown,
you're screwed--suburb jobs are not reachable from outlying commuter rail
stations. European countries run their rail stations less for 9-5 commuters
and more as metro systems on larger scale. Consequently, they also see their
rail systems get used for more than just 9-5 commuters. These commuters make
up ~80% of the LIRR and more like ~50% for the Zurich S-Bahn. Also, more
people use transit to commute: in NY metro area, only 30% use transit (of any
form!) to commute, whereas it's again closer to 50% in Zurich.

~~~
elfexec
> people just can't imagine that America is that bad at something.

No. I'm just pointing out the absurd conclusions given the numbers. It really
doesn't make statistical sense that zurich would have so much more traffic
than Penn Station. Also, we are talking about NYC metro. Not the US.

> First, NYC has two major rail termini (Penn and Grand Central)

I know. I'm the one that pointed it out.

> Zurich has just the one I believe.

Even still, the population disparity is so great that it doesn't matter.

> Another factor is the lack of intercity rail travel in the US.

We aren't talking about the US. We are talking about NYC and its surrounding
metropolitan area.

> If you work different hours, say 4-12, you're screwed.

NYC metro runs 24/7\. And most other rail stations around the world shut down
at night.

> European countries run their rail stations less for 9-5 commuters and more
> as metro systems on larger scale.

We aren't talking about countries. I'm talking about NYC.

> in NY metro area, only 30% use transit (of any form!) to commute, whereas
> it's again closer to 50% in Zurich.

Finally you get to the point. 30% of 21 million is 6.3 million. 50% of 1.8
million is .9 million. That is my point. Hell even if we boost that to 100%
for zurich metropolitan, then it's 1.8 million. Which is still much smaller
than 6.3 million. Even if we don't count the 62 million tourists visits to NYC
( portion of those most definitely comes through Penn Station ), I'm just not
understanding that Zurich would have 50% more traffic than Penn Station.

Instead of dealing with the actual stats and numbers, most of your comment was
just a silly rant about the US. I get it, we don't do rail well as a nation.
But we are a gigantic nation with a car/plane culture.

~~~
jcranmer
> Even if we don't count the 62 million tourists visits to NYC ( portion of
> those most definitely comes through Penn Station )

Amtrak moves 10 million through Penn Station a year. That's not a hard
statistic to look up. Even then, I suspect the majority of those are not even
tourists: maybe 1 million (equaling 2 million trips, since you would pass
through Penn Station once to arrive and once to leave) out of the 60 million
are going to be.

It's harder for me to get the numbers for Switzerland, because the data is
published in German, which I don't speak a lick of. But Switzerland is moving
a far larger portion of its population by train than the US, and even if you
arrive at Zurich by airport, there's a decent chance you're taking the train
into the city. (If you arrive at JFK or LaGuardia, you're unlikely to make a
trip to your destination in NYC via Penn Station).

> 30% of 21 million is 6.3 million

That's 30% of the entire metro population. First, subtract everyone who
actually lives in NYC except Queens: they're not riding the LIRR or NJT into
Penn Station since they have no train station to board at. If you look at the
population of Long Island minus Brooklyn, that's about 5 million people, and
LIRR is carrying about 70 million people per annum. At ~80% commute traffic
and assuming 250 working days per annum, that's about 112,000 people commuting
into Penn Station a day (each person makes two trips) out of 5 million
catchment.

~~~
elfexec
> Amtrak moves 10 million through Penn Station a year.

Who cares? I already said I don't care about the NJTransit, LIRR, Amtrak
numbers. I can accept 110 million from those sources. What I said was that the
the NYC metro numbers was missing.

> That's 30% of the entire metro population.

Yes. And .9 million is the entire metro population of zurich. I was trying to
measure likes with likes. That's the point.

> First, subtract everyone who actually lives in NYC except Queens:

Why? Jesus, you are so invested in this that you build up straw man after
straw man and bring up switzerland and US over and over again.

For the last time, I'm talking about NYC and Zurich. Penn Station with
Zurich's station. Go rant about your issues with US rail elsewhere.

You act like only people from jersey, long island and connecticut use penn
station. Penn Station is more than that. Ever hear of the empire state
building? Ever hear of madison square garden? New Yorkers also traffic through
Penn Station.

If Zurich has more traffic, fine. I'm don't really care. You act like your
life depends on whether Zurich or Penn Station has more traffic. My point is
simply that given the actual raw numbers, it seems highly unlikely. Unless
there is a data point we are missing or overlooking.

My issue is with the validity of these numbers, your issue is you want to make
the US look bad at all costs.

~~~
jcranmer
> Who cares?

You said there are 60 million tourists, presumably to emphasize just how much
traffic you'd expect NYC to have proportionally to Zurich. I'm giving you hard
numbers to try to explain why Zurich's station has higher ridership than NYC,
which is what I assumed you cared about.

> What I said was that the the NYC metro numbers was missing.

There's 60 million per annum from the two Penn Station stops. That's unlinked
trips, so I don't know how many are transfers to/from commuter rail or Amtrak.
But my guess is at least 50%, since there's not much in the area besides
Madison Square Garden and Empire State Building (which is easier to get to
from Herald Square anyways, if you can reasonably pick your midtown trunk
line).

> Why?

So I can put into context where the 50% of Penn Station traffic that comes
from the LIRR comes from.

> My point is simply that given the actual raw numbers, it seems highly
> unlikely.

And I'm trying to explain, using actual numbers, why this is the case. Mere
size can't be sufficient, else you would refuse to believe that Los Angeles
Union Station doesn't even service 10 million people a year.

So what do you want from me, if you don't want actual hard data, but refuse to
believe that Penn Station is serving less traffic than Zurich's central
station?

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gumby
The interesting part of this article is mostly up front and not reflected in
its title.

The author traces a thread of populism (of the 150-year-old-kind) through
reform to technocraticism (a sort of platonism) to counter-reaction from the
the same group against some failures of technocracy, which (my implication)
leads straight to the strength of the current GOP reaction against expertise
and support for the atomization of power.

If this thesis is believable (and I am not yet convinced -- this is the first
time I've seen this argument) is really puts paid to the nonsensical
abstractions of "left" and "right" and does provide a philosophical model of
(some) understanding the politics of the last 40 years.

(I say this without claiming anybody is good, bad, saintly or evil, so please
do not read this comment as being partisan on any side.)

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loukrazy
There is a great American Experience episode about the history

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throwaway_gdue
The thesis is pretty bland: “autocrats can get things done faster”.

But the historical context and anecdotes were interesting.

