Great Rail Starts at the Station

By Bridget Mintz Testa

With major high-speed rail projects in various states of development in California, Texas, the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Southeast, rail in the U.S. is experiencing something of a renaissance. But the HSR projects aren't the only reasons people are increasingly willing to ride the rails. Awareness of the pollution from automobiles and a general exhaustion with the car-commuting lifestyle are contributing, too.

According to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, passenger rail use has increased from about 558 million miles traveled in August 2000 to 670 million miles last July, a clear vote in favor of the mode. Rail travel of all kinds is also very attractive to two ends of the age spectrum — millennials, who just don't seem to like to drive, and senior citizens, who might eventually stop driving altogether. (Read more about millennials' preferences on page 26.)

However, the entire rail experience starts with stations, and many of those in the U.S. are not only heavily overcrowded, but also dowdy and dull with few amenities to make passenger travel enjoyable. Across the nation, efforts are under way to remedy that.

Fresh start in Research Triangle Park

The biggest transportation challenge facing North Carolina's Research Triangle Park — the area formed by Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill — is keeping up with the region's growth, according to Chris Lukasina, AICP, executive director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. "We are always on lists of the best places to live," he says. "There has been a lot of growth, and there will be a lot more."

According to the Census Bureau and the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management, the Research Triangle region grew from 1.9 million people in 2010 to 2.1 million people in 2014 — a growth rate of 8.4 percent. According to the same sources, the Research Triangle region is expected to grow to 2.9 million people in 2030.

"When we look at the latest planning efforts, there is support for all kinds of passenger rail, from the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor to commuter transit," Lukasina says. "Rail gives people more choices in the face of expected traffic congestion. We will need more and bigger roads, but we need more choices — steel wheels or rubber tires — as part of the overall solution."

The Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor — or as it's coming to be called, the Southeast Corridor — is one of those choices. It will run from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, and points beyond. "The [project] has gone through the Tier 2 EIS, and a record of decision is expected any day," says Craig Newton, project engineer for the new Raleigh Union Station that will replace the existing one, serving Amtrak and HSR passengers.

But there is no set start date for the Southeast Corridor. Consequently, "There is no definitive completion date," says Jason Orthner, manager of design and construction for the Rail Division of the NCDOT.

What is nearly finished is the Piedmont Improvement Project in North Carolina, a 176-mile-long section of the future Southeast Corridor. "The PIP's impetus is to increase the frequency and reliability of trains between Raleigh and Charlotte," Orthner says. PIP funding totaling $520 million comes mostly from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Improved rail transport without adequate stations for passengers is, however, no solution. The current Raleigh Amtrak station on Cabarrus Street, a key stop along the future Southeast Corridor, is too small to serve current passenger numbers, much less those anticipated for the future.

Today's Raleigh station is only 1,800 square feet, meaning that passengers frequently have to wait outside the station, even when it's raining. The number of parking spaces is very limited, too. But despite all of that, "it is one of the busiest stations in the southeast," says Roberta Fox, city planning project manager for the station. (Raleigh has the second-highest Amtrak ridership in the region.)

The platform suffers from the same size problem as the station itself. It is actually just an asphalt strip, so Amtrak personnel must put steps out for people to step down from trains. "Trainsets come in, and some of the trains are longer than the actual platform," Fox says. "The train has to let people get off and then it has to back up into Cabarrus Street, which blocks traffic on that road."

With no room for enlarging the current facility to meet the needs of planned expansion of Amtrak service, a new location has been chosen a few blocks away. The new Raleigh Station is a partnership of the city and the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Centrally located in downtown Raleigh, the site is surrounded by property with extensive development potential just three blocks west of the city's center, near both the State Capitol and the Raleigh Convention Center. The proposed new station will be located inside the "Boylan Wye," a convergence of three rail corridors: the North Carolina Railroad, Norfolk-Southern, and CSX.

"The station is an adaptive reuse of an existing building with about 40,000 square feet," Fox says, with space for ticketing, baggage handling, retail, a restaurant, office space, and a large civic space. It will inhabit the 1960s-era Viaduct Building, once a steel storage warehouse, that the city bought in May 2015.

"This first phase of two phases accommodates Amtrak and allows an increase in ridership," Fox says. Phase One includes a concourse for Amtrak trains and HSR. Although commuter service isn't currently part of the mix, the station is designed to accommodate that — as well as potential expansions of Amtrak — as needed. According to Fox, in fiscal year 2013, nearly 160,000 passengers came through Raleigh's existing Amtrak station. Assuming three percent annual growth, Fox says that number will grow to nearly 180,000 by 2017.

The new station will have grade-separated entrances, known as "rail over road" bridges, Fox says. "The project will build two rail bridges over the entry drives [that] will allow cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists to travel on a new roadway underneath the rail lines."

The second phase of the project includes a bus transfer facility and more car parking. "We are looking at sites adjacent to Phase One so we have easier transfers between bus and rail," Fox says.

A notable aspect of the entire $100 million project is the plan for a large outdoor civic plaza — for events, food trucks, a waiting area, and the like — that fronts West Street. "The facility will be surrounded on three sides by rail. One of the goals is to 'pull' the entry of the facility out of the building toward the street," Fox says. "It allows [for] a lovely urban experience."

That last part is crucial. "When we do these facility improvements, we are trying to make the experience better for passengers," says Newton. "Better train stations improve the overall rail experience, increase ridership, and produce more revenue."

Catching up with growth

Chicago Union Station is a key regional transportation facility and economic driver, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation's May 2012 Master Plan Study of the facility. It is the third-busiest rail terminal in the country, serving more than 300 trains daily, carrying a total of about 120,000 passengers — a level of traffic that would rank it among the 10 busiest airports in the U.S.

Most travelers at Chicago Union Station take Metra commuter trains. CUS is also Amtrak's hub for its network of regional trains serving the Midwest, plus most of the nation's overnight trains. CDOT's partners for the master plan study included Chicago's city planning department, Amtrak, Metra, and the region's MPO, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

"Chicago Union Station is at capacity today and can't add any more trains," says Peter Skosey, executive vice president of the city's Metropolitan Planning Council, a nongovernmental, nonprofit planning corporation. It was a member of the steering committee that developed the master plan.

Union Station needs to add both more space and more trains. "We will see 28 percent growth — two and one-half million more residents by 2040," says Joe Szabo, executive director of CMAP, the region's MPO. "That crystallizes the state of our challenge. We're not moving people or goods as well as is needed now, and we have to plan for two million more people."

"It's not just about transportation," Skosey says. "People understand that a vibrant CUS can attract investment in restaurants, offices, and retail built around the station. It will be good for downtown Chicago."

From 2011 to 2014, Amtrak and CDOT implemented a number of short-term goals to enhance passenger conditions and amenities within CUS, reduce crowding, improve local street traffic flow, and make curbside bus access to the station better.

Today, although medium-term goals are in sight, they can't be started until Phase One engineering work is complete. The funding is in place for that. Amtrak put up $4 million, Metra and the city put up $4 million, and the Regional Transit Authority contributed $1 million to this initial phase of the project, notes Ray Lang, senior director of Amtrak Government Affairs and Corporate Communications in Chicago.

The improvements, expected to start in 2018 and last 18 months, will include widening existing narrow passenger platforms by removing the old, unused mail and baggage platforms and moving the tracks on either side of those old platforms closer together. The station will remain open for business during the overhaul.

Other improvements include removing obstacles in the station corridors and widening corridors to improve pedestrian access and reduce confusion for Amtrak passengers, who can get caught up in the bustle of rush-hour commuters.

There will also be "top-side improvements to help with traffic flow around the station," Skosey says. A new bus terminal just south of the station will help organize passenger, bus, and pedestrian movements, making traffic more logical and safer, and eliminating the need for pedestrians to have to cross the street to get to the bus, he adds.

There's a strong economic development component, too, and private investment will help finance other improvements. A master commercial real estate plan calling for office towers over the track is under way. It calls for redeveloping the nine floors above the headhouse (the portion of the building which doesn't house track or platforms), most of which are sparsely occupied or empty.

"We have made the headhouse side of the building more development-ready, but we don't want to neglect passenger flow and the operations capability of the building, and we want to develop more revenue streams," Lang says.

Lang thinks redevelopment of the station at all levels is unstoppable. "The city, state, Metra, and Amtrak are all advocating for the CUS master plan," he says.

Renovating an icon

The original Penn Station was a Beaux-Arts beauty, but it was demolished for financial reasons in 1963 by the Pennsylvania Rail road, which then owned it. Today's Penn Station, owned by Amtrak, is a basement.

"The ceilings are low; the corridors are narrow; it is dark and cramped," says Joseph Chan, Empire State Development Company's executive vice president for real estate and public-private partnerships. "It lacks the passenger experience the old Penn Station had, and it also lacks the passenger experience befitting one of New York City's great gateways. It was built to accommodate about 200,000 users daily, and today we're up to 650,000 passengers daily."

Amtrak, the Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit, Empire State Development, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (the MPO) are all working together to renovate this subterranean train station.

"The Penn Station complex renovation is identified as a regional improvement," says Gerry Bogacz, planning director for NYMTC. A press release from Governor Cuomo's office explains the funding situation: "The construction cost is expected to be in excess of $3 billion, including $2 billion to redevelop the Farley Post Office and Penn Station into a world-class transportation hub called the Empire Station Complex. At least $1 billion would go toward ancillary retail and commercial developments between 7th and 9th Avenues.

The current 1,800-square-foot waiting room in Raleigh's current Amtrak station. Photo courtesy Clearscapes, P.A.

The home of the future Raleigh Union Station has a 40,000-square-foot interior — plenty of room for passengers, ticketing, and baggage handling. Rendering courtesy NCDOT Communications.

"Of this amount, $325 million will come from government sources, including the U.S. Department of Transportation, Port Authority and Amtrak. Nearly all of the work will be funded by private investment in exchange for an interest in the long-term revenue stream generated by the retail and commercial rents."

The near-term plan has two phases — one focusing on the Farley Post Office across 8th Street — designed by McKim, Mead and White, as was the original Penn Station — and the other that focuses solely on Penn Station itself.

The Farley Post Office, which sits directly above the tracks that serve Penn Station, will become the home of a new 200,000-square-foot train hall for intercity (Amtrak) and Long Island Railroad transit passengers. It will be known as the Moynihan Train Hall, in honor of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It will also serve as a civic space, according to Chan. "It will extend Penn Station an entire block to the west," he says, "serving as a great front door to Penn Station as well as a great living room."

Moynihan Station will be surrounded by retail. "Outside of the train hall is another 700,000 square feet [suited to] technology-driven office space, some retail, and possibly a hotel," Chan says. The team is seeking one developer for both the private space and the train hall, which New York State has already designed.

New York State owns 2.5 million square feet of air rights over the Farley Post Office. "We are in the process of looking at how those air rights can be leveraged to make improvements to make a great train hall," Chan says.

The full Empire Station Complex proposal to replace New York City's Penn Station has three phases. The first would redevelop the station's shell, removing the theater at Madison Square Garden and building a grand entrance along 8th Avenue. The second would convert the adjacent Farley Post Office into a spacious new Amtrak hall known as Moynihan Train Hall — a long-standing effort whose end finally seems within sight. The third part would link Penn and Moynihan via underground concourses into one great transit complex. Rendering courtesy Gov. Andrew Cuomo/Flickr.

The other phase moves east across 8th Street to Penn Station itself; the two facilities will connect via an underground passageway. Moving Amtrak and transit passengers to the Moynihan Train Hall will open up space at Penn Station, some of which can be redeveloped as retail to increase revenue. An additional asset: advertising. "We have 650,000 passengers per day going through Penn Station — that's 1.3 million eyeballs," Chan says. "Factor in the technological improvements to ads, and it's a serious asset. We believe we have a great offering for the private sector."

"Penn Station needs to be greatly improved," Chan says. "We have ideas from the railroads on how to improve it: more natural light, more space and more of a welcoming space for passengers. One idea involves opening up 33rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Thirty-third Street is right over the Long Island Railroad Concourse. If you remove it, you can raise the ceilings of the concourse and replace its ceiling with glass. It would be a much better space." (The Moynihan Train Hall, too, will have a 90-foot-high ceiling with a huge skylight to let natural light in.)

A second improvement would be to remove a 5,500-seat theater belonging to Madison Square Garden that sits squarely over the Amtrak Concourse, giving it very low ceilings.

RFPs for Moynihan Train Hall and RFEIs for Penn Station were both released in January. Responses from developers for both solicitations are required by late April. "There has been a lot of interest and inquiries," Chan said. "We're very optimistic."

"We want a great train hall flooded with lights, soaring buildings, and a great place to relax and catch a cappuccino before catching a train," Chan says. "We want Penn Station/Moynihan Train Hall to be a multiblock intercity and transit hub befitting the greatest city in the world."

Bridget Mintz Testa is a Houston-based freelance writer who specializes in business, technology, and the places where they intersect.

Raleigh Union Station Phase I: The current Union station has a crowded waiting room, a short platform, and inconvenient parking and transfers — conditions that will vastly improve when the new station is built. Watch: youtu.be/ChJXdLo2FZU