The Regional Plan Association (RPA) has accepted approximately $1 million in federal funds from Amtrak since 2022 for lobbying services, the New York Daily News reported today.
The RPA was paid to lobby for Amtrak’s conjoined Gateway Program and Penn Station proposals, the editorial board said in an op-ed. This lobbying happened in the form of social media posts; op-eds; press conferences; Washington, D.C. rallies; and testimonies before the Gateway Development Corporation Commission.
Twice, the Daily News editorial board stated that RPA executive director Tom Wright, who leads the Penn Station Working Advisory Group, is a “paid lobbyist” for Amtrak. AN has emailed Wright, former RPA president Robert Yaro, and Amtrak for comment.
The finding was revealed in the RPA’s most recent IRS 990 tax filing listed on its website. The editorial board says this Amtrak contract calls into question the integrity of what the RPA has said in the past about Gateway, Penn Station, and the controversial plan to demolish Block 780.
Conflict of Interest?
In 2022, the RPA received a $350,000 grant from Amtrak for 18 months of work, according to its Form 990. The grant was later renewed and increased by $500,000 for another 18 months of services. “Our work is supported by Amtrak,” RPA wrote in its 2023 tax form.
Civic leaders see a potential conflict of interest.
City Club of New York president Layla Law-Gisiko said on social media the editorial was “scathing” and that it revealed Amtrak’s and the RPA’s “cozy” relationship. She also said she hopes the RPA and Amtrak rethink their positions on through-running service at Penn Station.
“I’m really hoping the RPA takes this opportunity to reconsider its position,” Law-Gisiko told AN. “This would be a true sign of leadership. I’m also hopeful other organizations, including the RPA, that, up until now, have been incredibly reluctant to entertain other modalities as an immediate solution demonstrate more open-mindedness,” she said.
Law-Gisiko also noted that she’s optimistic about what Andy Byford’s appointment to lead Penn Station’s redevelopment means for through-running advocates. “Penn Station is a complicated issue, but it’s now under the leadership of Andy Byford, a true public servant. He understands complex issues require complex solutions, and that shying away from complexity gets you nowhere.”
Sam Turvey, ReThinkNYC chairperson, filed a lawsuit against the State of New York on behalf of the Penn Community Defense Fund (PCDF) in 2022, in an attempt to stymie the demolition plan for Block 780. Today, Turvey works with a broad coalition, which includes the City Club, to promote alternative redevelopment plans for Penn Station to what Amtrak and the RPA envision.
“I will leave it for others to judge the impact these grants may have had but I note they are quite large even for an institutional not-for-profit like the RPA,” Turvey told AN. “What I would say is that these monies were poorly spent as Amtrak should have first spent money on dynamic Rail Traffic Controller (RTC) capacity calculations, a software they have and use daily, but have inexplicably not used to support their capacity analysis of Penn Station.”
Turvey continued:
“An RTC effort should have preceded paying the RPA to cheerlead the effort before this essential work was done. The RPA is also to be criticized for cheerleading the Railroad’s capacity reports sans RTC calculations and also issuing an economic analysis of the Gateway Tunnels that somehow missed and did not even dedicate one word to the possible through-running conversion which is made possible by the Gateway Tunnels. Tens-of-billions-of-dollars of taxpayer money, our economic future, and the fate of a neighborhood are all in play and we are paying a premium for reports and analyses that are demonstrably incomplete.”
Keeping the Lights On
The RPA is a nonprofit, not a state entity, and thus depends on private donors for financing. Entities that sponsored the RPA’s Fourth Regional Plan, for instance, include the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Google.
The nonprofit also accepts money from real estate companies such as Related Companies, SL Green, Vornado Realty Trust, Brookfield Properties, Cushman & Wakefield, and Blackstone. Garrett Armwood, SL Green vice president for government affairs, sits on the RPA Board of Directors.
Related built Hudson Yards, and Vornado was behind Hotel Pennsylvania’s demolition. Vornado owns “five of the eight sites” that surround Penn Station, which would have been opened up to redevelopment should the Block 780 plan go forward. For PCDF, this presented a conflict of interest.
“The [Block 780] proposal is ostensibly intended to fund the expansion and reconstruction of Penn Station, but its primary purpose is to enrich Vornado Realty, one of the largest contributors to Governor Hochul (and before her, Governor Cuomo) and the owner of five of the eight sites that would benefit from this plan” PCDF said in its 2022 lawsuit. (Parenthesis in original.)
ASTM North America, a company working with Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) and HOK on a Penn Station plan, is a listed RPA donor as well.
In 2023, ASTM North America donated between $50,000 and $99,000 to the RPA. Architecture and planning firms like AECOM, WSP, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), PAU, Stantec, Arup, WXY, Gensler, Sasaki, KPF Foundation, FXCollaborative, and Hargreaves Jones also support the RPA.
AECOM donated over $100,000 to the RPA. BIG, Stantec, and FXCollaborative donated between $5,000 and $9,999. PAU donated between $1,000 and $4,999.
ReThinkNYC said via email, after the Daily News article was published, that “WSP and FXCollaborative clearly should have included RTC calculations in their work product” and that “the RPA is likewise very much to be faulted for endorsing and promoting this clearly deficient and expensive work product.”
AN contacted FXCollaborative for comment.
Disclaimer: The author worked for ReThinkNYC between 2018 and 2022.
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