THE US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has selected a joint venture led by Aecom and also comprising LiRo-Hill to provide project management services for the Penn Station New York Transformation Project. Construction is scheduled to begin by the end of 2027.

The joint venture will work with Amtrak and the yet-to-be announced master developer for the long-delayed public-private partnership (PPP) project to renovate and modernise the major station in New York City.

Work is expected to cost $US 7bn and will include: increasing concourse capacity and improving access; enabling safer and more efficient operations and accommodating passenger service growth. Three groups have been shortlisted for the master developer contract:

  • Grand Penn Partners (led by Macquarie Infrastructure Development and Solutions, with partners including Suffolk Construction Company and Mott MacDonald.
  • Penn Forward Now, led by Fengate Capital Management, with partners including Tutor Perini, Parsons and Arup, and
  • Penn Transformation Partners, led by Halmar Infrastructure Development, with partners including Skanska, HNTB, and Network Rail Consulting.
Revised schedule

USDOT and Amtrak announced a revised schedule for the delayed project in August 2025. Amtrak was also awarded a $US 43m federal grant to begin project development, including some preliminary design engineering work and beginning the process to select the master developer. Prospective partners were invited to submit letters of interest in last October with the preferred bidder due to be selected in May and announced in June, USDOT says.

Penn Station is the busiest station in the Western Hemisphere and was used by over 12 million passengers in fiscal year 2024, nearly 18% of total Amtrak ridership and nearly 45% of Northeast Corridor ridership. The station has 21 tracks and accommodates more than 1000 daily train movements on 16 Amtrak, New Jersey Transit (NJT), and MTA Long Island Rail Road lines.

In October, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) launched a service optimisation study for the project, which was expected to take 18 months to complete.

Troubled past

The project experienced a troubled recent past with many false starts. The Trump administration removed New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) from its role of leading the project in favour of station-owner Amtrak in April 2025, which it said would save taxpayers money. The administration subsequently appointed former MTA president, Andy Byford, as a special advisor to Amtrak for the project in May 2025. Byford is leading the process to select the master developer.

“Reaching another milestone with USDOT for the Penn Station Transformation Project reflects our ongoing commitment to keeping this project right on schedule and being transparent with updates,” Byford says.