urbanSTL

Illinois is a big state supporter of rail service that no one even touches in the Midwest let alone the midsection of the entire country. At least Missouri via "River Runner" and Michigan see a benefit in state supported rail service. Both will grow service via new multilevel car/trainsets while Michigan will see a boost with the increased speeds.

Wisconsin, they simply dropped the ball just as Florida for purely idealogical reasons, could be building ridership all the way to Madison if it would have took the federal funding.

As far as Illinois, the latest plan to add more rail service in the state that continues to promote Chicago as the defector Midwest transportation hub.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/pas ... channel=41


Amid a flurry of announced rail funding programs, Illinois has identified $60 million for re-establishing Amtrak service linking Chicago and Rockford, Ill., as early as late next year. Amtrak's Black Hawk last connected the two cities in 1981.

Plans call for one Amtrak round trip daily, linking Chicago's Union Station with a temporary station at 7th Street in Rockford, Ill., according to Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). A permanent station would be built after rail service resumes on the route, roughly 87 miles in length.

Wish they'd get it done. Only 110 mph service between Dwight and Pontiac and no time has been taken off the schedule. No service to Quad Cities. Iowa nixed extending that to Iowa City. CN is getting in the way of Dubuque to Rockford.

Would love to see MO get behind an extension from Quincy to Hannibal. And adding a station between Poplar Bluff and Downtown STL on the Texas Eagle (i.e. near Ironton).

As for the numbers: It's great to see results from Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan's continued commitment to passenger rail. For a relatively red state it's encouraging to see us as one of the leaders in the Midwest.

The fact that Toledo has higher ridership than Cleveland is a bit bizarre. I guess it's all about proximity to Chicago.

Departure times for Cleveland are horrible 2:59am and 3:45am heading west and 1:54am and 5:30am heading east

roger wyoming II wrote:The Saint Louis station makes Citylab's "Saddest Amtrak Stations" in America List

That author is so full of it. His joke about illegal dentistry (oooooh, how macabre) falls completely flat and fails to conceal the fact that the whole point of his article is to bash a few crappy train stations. So he subjectively doesn't like the design of the Gateway Transit Center? I really couldn't care less what his thoughts are on contemporary civic architecture, especially when he's making no effort at thoughtful criticism. The station works well (it's not easy fitting an intra-city bus, inter-city bus, inter-city rail, light rail station in the heart of a city), is a success by all ridership standards, is light years ahead of what St. Louis had before, and - okay maybe the windows are a bit gimmicky - but the building itself looks quite nice.

In the same article he takes a jab at Newbern, Tennessee's Amtrak station - a classic old whistle stop station that the town has every reason to be proud of - for being "invisible" (Good one. Looks pretty visible to me!). He then proceeds to take a completely uncalled for and non sequitor jab at Newbern's City Hall (a standard, if not slightly more historic and well-maintained, version of a small-town storefront City Hall), while unwittingly revealing that the portion of his "research" that wasn't accomplished via 2-second Google image searches was achieved by simply looking these spots up on Google maps.

"Let's see what this Newbern Station looks like... okay... here it is, 146 Jefferson Street. Looks pretty normal. Maybe if I think hard enough I can find some way to belittle it..... OMG is that their City Hall??!! I'll definitely be able to find something snarky and stupid to say about that!!! But I'll throw in a totally irrelevant comment about Andrew Carnegie building libraries to try to sound intelligent."

I expect more from Atlantic Cities - i.e. actual analysis of America's lack of investment in passenger rail infrastructure - than this snarky click-bait crap.

"The Amtrak station that serves Savannah, Georgia, today, for example, looks like an adult video store that’s gone out of business." His lines of asinine commentary reveal that he's not only never been to the St. Louis Gateway Transit Center, but has also clearly never been to an adult video store, and therefore has lost any remaining credibility he may have had.

Sorry, wasn't really a fan of this article. I just hope this guy doesn't actually consider himself a legitimate critic of housing, architecture, design, or other factors that shape cities.

^ I hear ya; however, aside from the snark factor which seems pretty much mandatory with listicles like this, I think it was pretty much on the money with Saint Louis... it really is representative of the "Has Been" Station that while a "vast improvement" over what it most immediately replaced, is still sad when we remember Saint Louis' Union Station was the King of the Train.

Obviously a way to reuse Union Station for Amtrak would've been the best option. But barring that, the current station is just fine.

I've been to dozens of Amtrak stations across the country. What better new-ish stations are there than ours?

The new one in Normal IL is nice. It doubles as their city hall.

Alton is getting a new one soon

Just having platforms is a huge plus. Springfield IL really needs them.

I was wondering the other day if there might not still be a way to connect Union Station to to the Transit Center. Maybe it's too far. It is 3-5 city blocks depending on how exactly you do it.

I know very well we're not NY, but you easily end up walking that far as you navigate from their subways through to Grand Central. And you often walk that far in airports, I'd think.

Is there any sort of interesting connection that could be built between the two?

St. Louis, Missouri, opened its new train station in 2008. While it’s a vast improvement over the old St. Louis Amtrak station—a building that looks like a facility where unlicensed dentists practice their black-market trade—it’s still a crying shame for a city that once had the busiest train depot in the world. The city’s Union Station still services local rail, serving as a constant reminder of lost glory.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/07/ ... ca/397817/

Driving in the United States just hit a record high after years of decline

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/22/9011109/ch ... re-driving

At this point, it's difficult — maybe impossible — to say whether driving in the US will keep surging upward, or whether last year was a blip. But this question is crucially important for all sorts of reasons. States have to make predictions about future travel demand to plan highway and roads. If they overestimate future demand — as has happened since 2008 — they risk building unnecessary roads. But if they underestimate future demand, they risk not building enough infrastructure.

I feel like until gas prices stabilize at unsustainably high levels, it will be impossible to have a meaningful discussion in this (and most American) region(s) about public transportation. We as a country had a choice in the late 40's-60's to invest in public transit on a national scale; instead we went with highways and aircraft/bombs, and we've stuck to it. It is what it is.

^ I doubt that can happen and there could be paradigm shifts in efficiency cancelling it out. The problem is that public transportation issues is intrinsically connected with class and race issues in the US unlike the rest of the world. One concern could be the rise in crime could create hostility to public transportation and a return to or increase in sprawl and white flight.

^ I am wondering is could there be the possible need anyway to move the station some point down the road if the 220mph HSR gets started? Since it could require changes in the track layout between a downtown station and wherever it crosses the river. (to which there might be work overall on railroad bridges over the river)

arch city wrote:This station is one or two steps up from the Amshack.

It's truly a glorified bus depot, which sometimes is low-budget maintenance-looking or unkept on the outside.

Is there anything that you think is inadeqaute about the Gateway Transit Center in terms of serving bus and rail passengers? Or is it more just the design and sometimes unkept exterior that bother you?

The comparisons to Union Station (and all of the other train station architectural marvels of the past) are always going to be tough, but if the Gateway Transit Center existed in a void, what would be wrong with it? As a traveler are there any problems with it?

Why isn't Union Station used for Amtrak trains anymore? I mean, it's still sitting there.

MarkHaversham wrote:Why isn't Union Station used for Amtrak trains anymore? I mean, it's still sitting there.

I've read from people here that say it's because Amtrak was unwilling to use facilities that required them to back in and out off the passenger platforms rather then their preferred design like that of the MetroLink platforms.

It seems shortsighted that the city wouldn't simply throw some TIF at a private developer to reconfigure the Union Station tracks and platforms to make it a viable train station again. It seems to me that would've had much more chance at leading to the longterm success and revival of Union Station than throwing $18 million in TIf for an amusement park