Renovations to E.L. Amtrak station possible after U.S. Senate approves $2.5M in funding

It’s about time. The Amtrak/Greyhound station is old and dilapidated. I hate catching the bus there. This would be great for the city of East Lansing and I hope this building begins soon!

I’ve never understood why people think the current station is so terrible (and I catch trains and buses there dozens of times a year). That said, it does seem like it could use a capacity boost, as the people waiting for a train frequently overflow out of the building. But if we do this, let’s try to do it on the cheap and not create a “New Farm Lane” or “New Brody” sort of extravagance. People, this is a bus station, not a palace of kings.

Also, bets on long before for some Tea Party type starts jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin and screaming about how this project is singlehandedly to blame for our national debt? This apparent belief that every dollar the government spends (except on the military) is automatically flushed down the drain is really dangerous to our country and our economy. This, combined with complete paranoia about taxes, is the reason our infrastructure is falling apart and other nations like China are pulling ahead.

Great.
More money tossed down a rat-hole after the AMTRAK beast.

Last year the city hyped its application for the TIGER grant, with lots of press, at the time of the application, not so much when it was turned down, which is how the propaganda machine works.

At the time of the application so many people pointed out the obvious, even the Lansing State Journal, which goes out of its way to facilitate East Lansing propaganda, wrote a critical editorial.

Anyone who actually uses the train knows the Bluewater Limited and Pere Marquette are only still running because the state has provided subsidies to AMTRAK, and every year, with the state broke, these subsidies are touch and go. I’m not up on the next year’s appropriation, but that’s the kind of basic research journalists are supposed to do.

It is completely irresponsible for city government to write press releases about the train station that fail to talk about the elephant in the room, but that’s how city government in East Lansing is always run.

There is also this little matter of the high-speed rail from Detroit to Chicago, for which East Lansing will not be a stop. Battle Creek might have potential to become a transportation hub, with bus links to East Lansing (already an option to make connections to the Wolverine, and by the way, hanging around the renovated Battle Creek train and bus depot is still unpleasant and AMTRAK has no money for security guards and little for custodial services).

The out-of-the-way location on the south end of campus is not of any use as a local/CATA hub. “Unspecified” economic development is what passes for economic development planning from East Lansing government, a.k.a., wishful thinking.

TIGER was absolutely correct to reject the East Lansing application, even though we know the only skill city government has is snowing federal and state governments to get money for projects.

Anyone who has ever written a grant proposal (or an undergraduate research proposal) knows it is necessary to clearly explain, using all necessary information, not just throw around buzz words like “transportation hub” or “economic development.” How can you have a transportation hub when there are serious questions about the short term and long term viability of the train service? What is the economic development going to consist of? (Once again we see the idiotic city government “if you build it, they will come” approach to economic development.) What local and non-local bus service is going to connect at this hub? (The best hope would be that the Michigan Flyer would relocate there, away from downtown, which would of course affect their precious underused downtown parking and take away one of the few reasons for going downtown. The success of the Michigan Flyer, by the way, is a great example of the failure of “if you build it, they will come” re the Lansing Airport.)

No one will complain about the train station being better, though there are serious questions to be raised about priorities in appropriations (more money for the Bluewater Limited would be much better). Maybe they will get someone to give them more money—government reviewers are easily snowed. But unless we get high-speed rail, it would be the transportation hub to nowhere. I suppose as long as they don’t put local taxpayers on the hook with another GO bond to be paid for with speculative tax increment financing, like City Center II and the West Village hotel proposal, we should be grateful.

P.S.

Parking at the AMTRAK station is currently free, unlike parking at the airport. With yet another East Lansing parking structure, the cost of parking for a long trip could well exceed the roundtrip fare to Chicago.

Clearly, it’s the tea partiers that are running this country into the ground not the people in congress taxing us all. You’ve been watching too much CNN and left-wing propoganda. The tea partiers have no political power in this country so how can they be at fault for any problems that we currently have.
-Personally I don’t see the point of this project. If the first bus station was a success then there should already be funds for its renovation. Instead the government is funding a project that would otherwise fail by increasing taxes on all of us. Including me and I’m barely making it through college as it is.

The is an other bus lobby project with a Amtrak name on it. You know the people who run on public highways and use public terminals like this one. Get buses bought for them by the states. Get grants for routes.Don’t pay fuel taxes. Then the uniformed people rail against Amtrak. A new station is nice. But It could be used for more equipment. Amtrak because of record breaking ridership had a extra 29 million ot spend on new passenger cars. Just think if they really ran trains, how much money they’d have. A once a day or three times a week train service is not enough. The right wingers who want to save money, want to cut the services that are the income of the company so they lose MORE money. duh? It’s really not a left wing or a right wing thing. It’s just get for the cities and towns to have train service. In a few years, most of the air service will be gone. Victim of high fuel prices. If you want to save money cut the foreign controlled oil and highway lobby subsides.

I’m going to chime in again, even if there is no one out there.

You can be a proponent of AMTRAK and train travel, which I am, and still question this project.

First, the money is from HUD. If the city wants to get our Senators to push for some HUD money, is renovating the train station a top priority? As an end in itself, of course a new station would be nicer than the current one if there was an infinite amount of money. But could the money be better spent? I certainly think so. Of course, if it were AMTRAK money, it could be better spent keeping the train running instead of using state funding that could then be used for scholarships, etc. and may well disappear given the state budget crisis.

Second, city government isn’t in the slightest interested in renovating the train station. They are seeking seed money for their transportation hub, which is why they wanted a lot more from HUD than needed to renovate the station. These people are simply not capable of giving up on a stupid development idea. They will never say, guess we were wrong, let alone say they’re sorry to critics who warned about City Center II from day one or who pointed out last year that this transportation hub idea made no sense.

I seriously doubt the top brass in East Lansing city hall use the train, let alone bus service, like the low-lifes. This is about another excuse for developers to build something paid for by taxpayers.

Ha ha, funny story, Amtrak and Greyhound agents have already been cutting down on open hours, because they don’t get enough business to justify being open! “The transit hub?” Sorry, I don’t think you’ll get more usage unless the location changes. “I suspect” is not good enough for playing around with 2.5million . The city AT LEAST needs to conduct surveys of residents and arriving passengers to see what effect a new station has on their travel habits.

Wow, are the “journalists” at the State News so unable to find true news stories that they now reprint government propaganda without adding any independent critical thought? Anyone who has used Amtrak knows it is hanging on by a thread in East Lansing; it is will NEVER become the center of any transportation hub. Maybe the SN reporters should go back to covering the opening of new grocery stores and the 100th birthdays of local residents – because that’s the level of journalism they appear capable of handling.

City officials hope the full Senate and House approve the appropriations bill so the 35-year-old Amtrak Station, 1240 S. Harrison Road, can be redeveloped as a multi-modal transit center that could anchor new, yet-to-be-determined business developments in the southern portion of East Lansing.

Muti-modal transit center to anchor yet to be determined new businesses. Sounds like typical BS. East Lansing is not a transportation hub. Lansing is not a transportation hub. The Capitol City “international” airport is smaller than most civil aviation airports. What a joke. Arrogance and politics at its best!