When we first started studying Amtrak’s Gateway boondoggle in 2016, what caught our attention was the scheme to tear down several blocks of Midtown south of Penn Station, centered on Block 780, which is bounded by Seventh and Eighth Aves. between 30th and 31st Sts., as well as parcels on either side of both avenues. Back then the cost was estimated at $6 billion. Now the price tag is $18 billion (and there’s not a penny to pay for it). While the cost has tripled, what hasn’t changed is that it unnecessarily destroys a neighborhood, including the homes and businesses of New Yorkers. Our stand is the same: Don’t plow under Block 780 and displace people. Having gotten all the funding for the new Gateway tunnel under the Hudson, what needs to be decided by New York and New Jersey is where will the two new tubes go. Amtrak has always coveted 780, creating a stub end terminal for NJTransit trains and booting the commuter line out of Penn. NJT also wants its own palace, despite the fact that the railroads should be moving toward seamless consolidation instead of divorce. That was a major error of the Long Island Rail Road’s new East Side Access deep, deep under Grand Central. The LIRR should have shared GCT proper, saving 10 extra years of digging, $10 billion and providing far more useful service. Now comes a review by Amtrak and its Gateway contractor WSP that considers some other options besides 780 and, surprise, surprise, concludes that they don’t work, leaving only 780 on the table with the blueprints. But the review was based on the outdated and flawed assumptions that there needs to be 48 trains per hour entering Manhattan from Jersey, a fantastically high number and double the current load. Those projections are ages old and are similarly useless as the LIRR’s predictions that they would need 60 trains per hour coming into Manhattan (36 at Penn and 24 under Grand Central). But, let’s give Amtrak their magic 48. In fact, one of the options they examined, called through-running, does exactly that. Amtrak and WSP poo-poo it because it would require some reverse commuters to switch trains at Secaucus, but is that a reason blow up a neighborhood and waste $18 billion? “Change at Jamaica” is the norm for the LIRR. An even better plan would be to follow the original Access to the Region’s Core, to bring two new tubes under the Hudson, through Penn and then continue to Grand Central. That avoids the 780 demolition and gives Jerseyites direct service to the East Side. But it requires the railroads share instead of each having their own exclusive depots. As for Penn to become most efficient for moving trains and people, the upper level needs to be removed, all tracks need to be extended to 12-car lengths and many more vertical access points created. The spur towards Grand Central already exists at the east of Track 5. That future link was built in 1910, when Amtrak’s forebearers at the private Pennsylvania Railroad were much smarter than the bumbling government-run railroad of today. The bistate Gateway Development Commission, which should push for Grand Central, meets today. Violating the spirit of the open meetings laws of both states, the GDC meeting, like most of their meetings, is 100% virtual. If all commissioners can’t be there, at least have GDC staff be in person and allow the public to attend.