For commuters navigating congested platforms at Penn Station New York, the definition of frustration is looking at four brand new sets of stairs for almost a year that they can't use.

The new staircases and a new West End Concourse were built as part of the $148 million first phase of a project to convert the Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue into Moynihan Station. The Moynihan annex was supposed to have a fall 2016 opening date. The stairwells connect the concourse to platforms 3,4,5 and 6 which serve two tracks each.



While NJ Transit commuters are stuck in pedestrian gridlock on the platform, Long Island Rail Road commuters have been able to use a section of the new West End Concourse. That section of the new concourse is open during the morning and afternoon commuter rush and closed for work during midday.

An NJ Transit train next to one of four new Penn Station stairways which have haven't been opened for commuters for the past year.

"It's functionally workable, you are denying people access and they are bunching up when they get off the train," said Joe Clift, a transit advocate and former Long Island Rail Road planning director. "It's frustrating."

Last April, Empire State Development Corporation officials said the work was on schedule and on budget and that those staircases would open last fall. In August, an ESDC spokesman repeated the fall opening date. But 2016 came and went and the stairs were still under lock and key.

"It's been 8 months from the (August) article that showed the same staircases with the same gates," Clift said, who invited NJ Transit's board to tour the station with him.



A tour with Clift on Tuesday showed the part of the concourse that is open for Long Island Rail Road customers to use between tracks 17 and up. It remains closed below track 13, which shuts out NJ Transit riders, Clift said. Between 10 a.m and 3 p.m., the west end concourse on the LIRR side is closed so crews can continue doing what he called finishing work.

In January, ESDC officials said the project was in its final stages and that the stairs would open "in the future."

Since then, commuters have continued to ask when the stairs would be open.

"We're moving forward with opening the West End Concourse in Spring 2017," said Amy Varghese, an ESDC spokeswoman.

Full opening of the concourse and stairs has been delayed after it was redesigned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to match new technology and amenities in other stations, ESDC officials said. Opening the concourse and retrofitting it would have cost more and inconvenienced riders longer, officials said.

In May 2012, a Queens company was awarded a $147.7 million contract to construct the first phase of the construction, converting Farley into the Moynihan station annex.

Work started in summer 2012 and is funded mainly by federal grants and $29.5 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and $10 million from the Port Authority.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

