A reader who attended the MAS panel on Tuesday took time to post a series of comments and reactions:

Last night I attended a lively MAS panel discussion on Farley/Moynihan and I would like to add some talking points on the Farley/Moynihan/Penn project. I will do so in stages so we can hopefully discuss them separately.

One of the attendees was a woman who very passionately described the current Penn Station as a “disgrace”. I would like to think that the officials at the LIRR, NJT and Amtrak would certainly disagree with her, especially after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the station proper over the past 23 years. Great strides have been made within the station to increase/improve access, comfort and appearance. In particular, here are some of the improvements that have helped the disgraceful Penn Station that Charles Luckman gave us in the 1960s…(Continue reading)

In an editorial today, the Daily News says “there are hopeful signs Gov. Paterson is starting to focus on projects that would remake a huge swath of midtown.”

What's more important right now is that Paterson is trying to revive a development that would be a major boon to New York - provided the project is designed so as to maximize public benefits and minimize public costs.

Thanks to a rezoning that permitted construction of 5.5 million square feet of office space, the developers and Cablevision stood to reap handsome rewards as long as they invested in a new train station.

But no one ever settled how much the builders would pay, how much the public would kick in or even what kind of station they planned to offer. Still, it was clear that their most magnificent design was - and is - unaffordable at almost $3 billion.

So, first things first for Paterson, Bloomberg and all involved. As they seek to entice Cablevision back to the table, they must determine whether it is possible to design a station that provides major transportation improvements at minor public expense.

Aides say that's Paterson's goal. Excellent. Holding to it will mean refusing to simply tap into $2 billion that the Port Authority has set aside for transportation projects in New York. The public needs the biggest bang for the buck. Let's see what it is.

Yesterday, Paterson said he still has not mind up his mind about who should be in charge at Moynihan Station and reiterated his call for a summit of the key players. Newsday reports:

Paterson agreed with the rationale behind Port Authority control of the halted project - a position Mayor Michael Bloomberg bitterly opposes. But, he said, he hasn't decided if that agency is the best choice to lead the Penn Station redevelopment project. The Empire State Development Corp. is currently the overseer.

Paterson said he is open to a funding solution that would lead to actually moving dirt at Moynihan as well as at other financially troubled developments, including the Hudson Yard site.

"We've gotta take all those projects, bring the stake holders in, have a conversation about what is working and what isn't working and show leadership," Paterson said after a news conference at his executive chambers in Manhattan.

Read “Paterson’s Penn Push,” from The Daily News

Read “Considering Who Will Run Moynihan Station Project,” by Michael Frazier for Newsday

Yesterday, Governor Paterson endorsed Senator Schumer’s proposal to give the Port Authority control over Moynihan Station. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “The Port Authority is the area's transportation vehicle. The Moynihan Station is a transportation project.” (Watch a video of the press conference here)From the Daily News:

This, of course, pits Paterson against Mayor Bloomberg, who was less than thrilled with Schumer's rejection of a key part of the mayor's plan as "the goofiest thing" he had ever seen. Bloomberg retorted that perhaps Schumer should mind his own business.

The governor insisted the disagreement over Moynihan Station "isn't a personal feud," and praised Bloomberg for voicing concerns now rather than at some point down the road, adding: "He did what public servants should do."
Paterson said he will "weigh" Bloomberg's concerns as he works to reach a final decision on Moynihan, but he also called Schumer's proposal "a good idea."

Paterson also again defended his decision to do away with the two-chair structure Eliot Spitzer created at ESDC - a move that has brought him considerable grief from upstate business leaders and editorial boards.
The governor said he doesn't have anyone "teed up" to run the development corporation; he has appointed a commission to help him find someone.

The Post has an entertaining graphic called “The Fight for Moynihan Station.”

Read “Paterson Agrees With Schumer on Moynihan Station,” by Elizabeth Benjamin for The Daily News

Last night, the Municipal Art Society convened a panel to discuss next steps for Moynihan Station and the priorities for the Far West Side.

Panelists included: Kent Barwick, president, Municipal Art Society; Richard L. Brodsky, assemblyman, New York State Assembly; Anna Hayes Levin, chair, Community Board 4; and Daniel A. Biederman, president, 34th Street Partnership; and Kathryn S. Wilde, president and CEO, Partnership for New York City. The moderator was Charles Bagli, reporter, The New York Times.

Pointing to a projected map of the Far West Side (pictured below and available for download here), Kent Barwick noted a lack of planning and coordination. “We’re dealing with mostly state projects being built by people who apparently don’t run into each other in the halls of Albany,” he said. It is essential that the public sector build the infrastructure to create the conditions for development – and “there is no theory in which Farley (Moynihan Station) is not the first step,” said Barwick. This is the challenge inherited by Governor Patterson and “if New York doesn’t grab this opportunity it will be a shame.”

“I still think moving MSG makes sense,” said Anna Hayes-Levin. She admitted that the Garden is currently out of the picture, but she said establishing some real leadership at the state level could bring the Dolans back to the table. “That’s what was missing before,” she quipped.

Meanwhile, up in Albany, Governor Patterson signaled that he is taking important steps to establish a strong role in Moynihan and other key projects. According to the Daily News, Paterson said that he wants to convene a summit involving the key parties of the projects in need of “real serious conversation” – Moynihan Station, Ground Zero, Hudson Yards, and Javits Center – an idea proposed by the New York Times in March. "I think they can be resurrected," he said. "That's why I would like to bring all those parties together to perhaps decide where are the priorities, No. 1, and secondly, what is achievable, and thirdly, what is not achievable."

Today, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the New York Observer jumped into the tussle between Sen. Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg over who should be in charge at Moynihan. In “Saving Moynihan Station,” the Times declared: “It is time to give the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey the lead role rebuilding this major gateway.”

There are many compelling reasons for giving this job to the Port Authority. It appears to have $2 billion to contribute, a very healthy start. Also, the Port Authority, which builds and maintains major public facilities, has hundreds of engineers, planners and experts. Transportation is their thing — bridges, ports, airports and, yes, train stations.

Today’s Port Authority also has the political leadership — and the transparency — needed to move forward successfully on this complicated project.

The Observer said the vision for Moynihan Station remains intact and should “keep moving.”

Both Moynihan Station and Hudson Yards would bring sizable, long-term benefits to the city’s economy. The main thing is to get them both fully on track now, while Mr. Bloomberg is still mayor. There is no guarantee his successor will share his vision and commitment to the large-scale, transformative, private-public projects that bring out the best of New York.

According to the Observer, Mayor Bloomberg today pointed to the gubernatorial roller coaster in Albany to explain the troubles for his economic development agenda - all the more reason to get behind Governor Paterson's efforts to get projects
under control.

“The chaos in Albany was not good for us,” he told reporters. “I’m not disparaging what they were trying to do, it’s just that when you change administrations, it does slow things down, and nobody expected when the administration changed a year and a third ago, that a year and a third later, they would go through the same process.”

This is a tune the mayor has been singing for a few days now—in London, he was more explicit, saying, “When Eliot Spitzer came in, he basically stopped every project that the Pataki administration negotiated, saying he wanted to look at it.”

We will have plenty more from last night’s event in the next few days.

Read “Saving Moynihan Station,” from The New York Times

Read “Keep Moving on Moynihan Station and Hudson Yards,” from The New York Observer

Read “Gov. Paterson Wants Sachs Break,” by Kenneth Lovett for The Daily News

The MTA failed to come to terms with Tishman Speyer over the $1 billion Hudson Yards deal. According to a New York Times report from Charles Bagli (the moderator of the panel at MAS tonight), the MTA will resume discussions with three developers, including Vornado (in a joint venture with Durst) and Related, co-developers of Moynihan Station.

Tishman Speyer had sought to delay closing on the rights over the yard on the east side of 11th Avenue until it got a zoning change for the western yard, a process that could take 18 months. Under the terms of the deal struck in March, Tishman Speyer would have paid $18.8 million at the closing for the eastern yard later this year, and $24.7 million for the western yard sometime in 2009 or 2010.

In an attempt to salvage the project, the transportation authority said it will now turn to three other developers — Douglas Durst, Stephen Ross and Steven Roth — who had competed for the right to build a small city of office towers and apartment houses on a platform over the 26-acre rail yards.

“It’s an exciting and important project for New York City,” said Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for Mr. Durst, who had offered $39 million less than Tishman Speyer. “We would be interested in resuming discussions on its development.”

Read “Talks Over West Side Yards Collapse Again,” by Charles Bagli for New York Times

Re-Discovering Rail: The Smart, Green Alternative from MAS on Vimeo.

This video is from our April 9 panel discussion with Don Phillips, former transportation reporter for the Washington Post, and Walter Zullig, counsel emeritus for Metro-North Railroad.

We'll be posting videos of our April 23 and April 30 programs soon.

Read "MAS Panel Recap: What if They Gave a Crisis..."

In somewhat of a prologue to our panel discussion on Tuesday, Senator Charles Schumer told a Crain’s Breakfast Forum today that the city should focus on Moynihan Station and the extension of the 7 line before developing the Hudson Yards. According to a report from Crain’s:

The senator reiterated his call for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take over management of the struggling Moynihan Station project, a new transit hub at the Farley post office. He said plans should proceed assuming Cablevision won’t change its mind about renovating the current Madison Square Garden instead of building a new arena at the Farley site, but that “parallel tracks” should be laid in case the company changes its mind. Progress might inspire it to do so, he said.

Mr. Schumer said Cablevision has told him it is willing to move its Wamu Theater, formerly known as the Felt Forum, which would allow a project to bring natural light into the dreary Penn Station below. He added that Amtrak should immediately free up 200,000 square feet at the station, which it owns, by moving “clutter” to a building it owns just south of the cramped transit hub.

The senator proclaimed a Port Authority takeover “likely to happen” and said that the agency, unlike the Empire State Development Corp., has $2 billion available and the expertise to bring Moynihan to fruition. “ESDC is not capable of being a major development agency here,” he said bluntly to approximately 300 businesspeople at a midtown hotel.

Mr. Schumer called on the city to create a special zoning district around Penn Station with density bonuses to encourage commercial development. Adding more office space will position the city to take advantage of the inevitable economic upturn, he said.

UPDATE

According to the Observer, Mayor Bloomberg responded to Schumer's comments at a press conference this afternoon, indicating that the city "would never agree" to the Port Authority taking over the project. “We certainly would never agree to the Port Authority being in charge of it because they can’t get done what they have to do downtown and the Port Authority’s first job has to be downtown and I don’t see how they could satisfy us at this point in time that they can take on that and do everything else,” he said.

Here is a video of the Mayor's comments.

Read “Schumer Calls for West Side Development,” by Erik Engquist for Crain’s

In moderating our most recent panel discussion on Moynihan Station, Alex Washburn, chief urban designer, NYC Department of City Planning, and a former aid to the late Senator Moynihan said, “Senator Moynihan wanted to rebuild Penn Station not just to give us a wonderful station, not just even to give us an icon, but I think most importantly to prove to ourselves that we can get things done, that we can build again, and that that will open up our future.”

Tomorrow night, a group of experts will convene at the Municipal Art Society for a discussion about how realizing Senator Moynihan’s vision by building a new train station could open up the Far West Side and help secure the future of the city.

Charles Bagli, economic development reporter for the New York Times, will moderate a panel discussion entitled “Moynihan Station: What Needs to Happen Next.” Panelists include: Kent Barwick, president, Municipal Art Society; Richard L. Brodsky, assemblyman, New York State Assembly; Anna Hayes Levin, chair, Community Board 4; and Daniel A. Biederman, president, 34th Street Partnership.

Among the issues that will be discussed:
o Who should be in charge of Moynihan Station?
o The impact of troubled Hudson Yards negotiations
o How should we prioritize the public projects on the Far West Side?
o How ARC fits into planning the Far West Side
o The future of Javits Center

Click here for registration info

On Saturday, May 10 – 139 years to the date after the “golden spike” was driven into the final tie that created the nation’s first transcontinental railroad – Amtrak held the first ever National Train Day at Penn Station in New York and Union Stations in Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

The Harlem Globetrotters made an appearance at Penn Station and the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) live-blogged the event at Union Station in Washington.

On Saturday, the Times gave more cause to the celebration when it reported a surge in mass transit riders across the country. According to the article, transit managers are predicting growth of 5 percent or more this year, the largest increase in at least a decade.

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

“In almost every transit system I talk to, we’re seeing very high rates of growth the last few months,” said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.
“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”

We’ve also included links to weekend stories about the Amtrak announcer at Penn Station and a repair project on the Northeast Corridor.

Read “Over the Bustle of the Everyday Commute, Her Voice Has Guided the Way,” by Vincent M. Mallozzi for The New York Times

Read “Straightening Out the Northeast Corridor,” by Ken Belson for The New York Times

Read “Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit,” by Clifford Krauss for The New York Times