New interim Amtrak station opens Monday







The new Amtrak train station

(David Carson/P-D)



Amtrak riders in St. Louis are about to say goodbye to the old and hello to the, well, temporary.



A new interim downtown train station is scheduled to open Monday next to the facility there now. That Amtrak station, at the south end of 16th Street under Highway 40, was dubbed a temporary facility - in 1978.



"The interim station is needed to clear the way for the permanent station to be built," Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. "The temporary station is in the footprint of the permanent station.



"Beyond all that, the temporary station has really gone beyond its designed life and is not suitable to be used by our passengers or our employees."



The move won't be far. The old temporary station is at 550 South 16th Street. The new interim station is at 551 South 16th Street.



Customers will begin using the $600,000 interim station for the first time Monday.



Visitors have complained for years about the temporary station, which was dubbed Am-Shack years ago. The station resembles a metal shed more than it does a passenger facility.



The 4,000-square-foot interim station will be used temporarily because St. Louis has plans for a new multiuse facility to be built on the southwest corner of Spruce and 14th streets.



That facility will provide service for Metro, Greyhound and Amtrak passengers. Next summer, the Missouri Department of Transportation will start building an outer road to Highway 40 between 16th and 18th streets.



The city is designing the permanent station, and MoDOT is paying for and building the $3.5 million connector.



Amtrak had hoped to finish the interim station by mid-October. The permanent station is expected to be finished by 2006.



St. Louis is served by three round-trip Amtrak trains to Chicago, two daily round trips to Kansas City and one daily round trip to San Antonio.



Amtrak also provides a daily connection to Carbondale, Ill., that connects with Amtrak trains to and from New Orleans.



Reporter Shane Graber

E-mail: sgraber@post-dispatch.com

Phone: 314-340-8207

Went there the other day to pick up a friend. Its so much better than the shack it replaced! Even though its just temporary.

Anyone have renderings/updates of the once-and-we-hope-future multimodal transportation center? This facility is to include access to Amtrak, Metrolink and buses. There have been images on the web, including at a Washington University site, via the architect of the planned station.



Rick

Probably won't matter if Amtrak is cut from the Federal budget like GW wants.

How much more before even Conservatives say, "Enough!--Please raise my taxes"?

bencharif wrote:How much more before even Conservatives say, "Enough!--Please raise my taxes"?

I believe it still may take awhile, and not just raising some taxes but really looking at how money is spent, where it is spent, and on whom.



You can go to thomas.loc.gov and see what congress discusses on a daily basis and their waist of time on non-issues and renaming of post offices while many serious issues continue unresolved.



I have jumped off the soapbox.

I take your point (and I like soapboxes), but I'll take do-nothingism anytime over a Congress that take$ dictation from lobbyi$t$ and dutifully rolls over for every pet project of the administration, such as tax giveaways to the wealthy; a needless war that kills and maims young men and women and adds billions upon billions to the national debt; and now, if Congress is as spineless as in the recent past, the dismantling of the only security most older people will ever know. It is a shameful record and, I fear, only worse to come.

I feel sorry for Amtrack. I really do. It's a shame, because it has the potential to be a tremendous service to the citizens of this country.



Truthfully, though, it needs a complete overhaul. They should focus on regional service. I know there are/were plans for a rapid train service in the midwest (anyone know the status?). I think Amtrack, with an overhaul, should forget trans-continental service--it can't compete with air travel. Instead, it should develop three regional rapid systems--Midwest, Northeast, and West. For such mid-range travel, rail really is the best.



This won't happen though. We're talking trillions of dollars in tax and service cuts over the next few years. Visionary, mind-bogglingly expensive projects, no matter how beneficial, will never happen.

Steve, please believe in your idea. It's a smart one and a workable one. America has done some amazingly progressive things. It may yet again if we work to make it happen.



The America of which you speak has been lied to unremittingly for a generation by administrations of both parties (remember, it was centrist Democrats who brought us NAFTA) about regulation, about progressive taxation, and about the relation of the individual to the state.



The Bush administration has not yet proposed extending a Guantanamo- style of law and governance here at home, so we need to use our freedoms, while we still have them, to argue and push in every way we can for the local, national and global policies we favor.



We have to continue to believe in the possibility of and work for the reality of change.

I recently received some information in the mail regarding the high speed rail lines, and asking for 25-1000$ donations. It came from the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. So, I guess the plan is still there, but as far as its status, 9 states in the midwest have completed initial planning, and Illinois and Michigan have begun track updates.



http://www.midwesthsr.org/index.htm

Looks like the multimodal center is making some progress.



Multimodal Center: The bids for the terminal are in and under budget. A few details remain to be worked out with railroad authorities. The terminal should be under construction soon.



source

This thing could not get built soon enough. It will be great to see some real progress, as opposed to just talk.

Here a couple of Pics I found. I agree, this thing can't get done soon enough. Hopefully it will be put to good use through expanded Metrolink and Commuter Rail options.

mcarril wrote:Here a couple of Pics I found.

I cannot see what is in that second rendering posted above, but I believe that first rendering is no longer what is planned... I think "Cityboy" may be able to help us out on the details with this one. I found this later rendering of what is now proposed...







I am sure the design will change again before it gets built... after all, the name has changed at least half-a-dozen times already...



Officially called the St. Louis Gateway Transportation Center --



also known as:

Multimodal Transportation Center

Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center

Intermodal Transportation Station

Intermodal Transport Center

St. Louis Bi-state Intermodal Center

Didn't they break ground on the multimodal center 4 years ago?

Thankfully the curved roof design is not going to happen. That rendering is OLD, OLD, OLD. Make it go away! Urbanstlouis posted the most recent rendering which is a fairly decent design by KAI. It is no longer as ambitious as the version that was to be built over the tracks. It now slithers in and out of the highway columns at grade. It retains a great deal of the character but will not be nearly as highly visible. The second rendering posted by mcarril also is no longer current. That was an ancillary building designed by Jacobs that was cut from the budget. It was basically a glorified walkway from the terminal to Saavis with a people mover, a few little retail spaces and a restaurant. With the fate of Amtrak and Greyhound funding hanging in the balance it surprises me that this project is continuing to move forward. Let's all hope it does.

Hmmm... I would say the only reason to be thankful that the curved roof design is not happing would be if that design would have ensured that the project never moved forward. I think it is too bad that plan was scraped, because that site and buildings seem much more atractive than the new plans. Well at least the plan is moving forward.

I'm glad that first rendering I found is no longer planned. The current design looks Ok I guess, though i'll be surprised to if that doesn't change by the time it is built. It is a little surprising, given the state of Amtrak and Greyhound that this project is moving forward. I'm glad it is, but a little surprised.

I loved that curved roof! It made it look like the union station trainshed. I include these pictures of the new train terminal in Champaign Ill.



















I'm about to be furious, so bear with me. TO THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS: THIS IS WHAT A MULTIMODAL TRAIN STATION SHOULD LOOK LIKE. IT SERVES BUSES AND AMTRAK. IT HAS 4 STORIES FOR A CITY OF 60,000. ST. LOUIS HAS A SHITBOX FOR 2 MILLION METRO. IT HAS A REAL RESTAURANT (SUBWAY), ALONG WITH A SMALL CAFE ON THE INSIDE. IT ALSO HAS A HIGHLY DESIRABLE BANQUET SPACE ON THE TOP FLOOR. I F-----ING HATE THE WAY THIS CITY IGNORES GOOD TRANSPORTATION PLANNING! AUUUUUGHHHH!!!!



for more info, go here: http://www.cumtd.com/itc/album.html



---waiting for a biblical flood to purge the city of its retarded leaders.

Well, that does look very nice, and I'd be happy with it for St. Louis, but I wonder how much the current designs are impacted by the location of the rather immovable double-decker highway or the train tracks or the possible need to leave space for the Chouteau Lake District.



on that last thought, wouldn't it be cool if the intermodal whatever could actually be built on both sides of the track with some skywalk tunnel connecting the two sides, and the lakeside part of the station could have cafe's / veranda / etc. that looked out over the lake. wouldn't that make for a great first impression for travelers coming in on the rails?

I think the City would do a more ambitious design if they had more money on hand. That said, the design could use more glass to let the light in like the train stations of old. The picture Urban shows looks like a trailer, I hope the finish is like the Zinc building downtown. There is some good work on KAI's(Kennedy Associates Incorporated) website so I think we should be pleased with the end result.