Metro-North Railroad, which is studying scenarios for providing service to Penn Station NY, has narrowed its choices to service over the Hudson and New Haven lines, eliminating the Harlem Line from consideration.  Metro-North previously reduced a group of twenty possible alignments to three weekday services: on the Hudson Line via Amtrak’s west side Empire Connection, the Harlem Line via the Hudson Line and the New Haven Line via Amtrak’s Hell Gate Line.

Metro-North has determined that Hudson and New Haven line connections would serve the highest potential ridership and provide the best time savings for riders, during both weekday and off-peak/weekend time periods. In addition to yielding lower ridership, Metro-North says a Harlem line option would require track construction to connect the Harlem and Hudson lines.  Both the Hudson and New Haven line alternatives would use existing tracks, reducing costs.

As part of its Penn Station plan, Metro-North would build new stations, at West 125^th and West 59^th Streets for the Hudson Line and at Co-Op City, Parkchester and Hunts Point for the New Haven Line. 

Metro-North west side access would complement the MTA’s plan to link the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central.  It would in fact require the completion of the latter project, at least on weekdays, because of Penn Station’s capacity crunch.  It’s unclear as yet how much Penn Station capacity would be freed up by the diversion of some LIRR to Grand Central Terminal, given expected LIRR and NJ Transit ridership growth.

MTA' s Penn Station Access Project

ARC Misses the Mark (May 13, 2002)

Saving Regional Rail From its Own Success (Aug. 7, 1998)
 

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