East Lansing Amtrak Station Article

[jrgerber]

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/stor ... /29617061/

A few comments:

Parking is free now it will be interesting to see how paid parking will go over.

There appears to be three waiting rooms that can be locked out from the rest of the station. Waiting to see what the seating arrangement is and how passengers and their luggage will be handled.

There will be more outside shelter. However if CATA rakes in the dollars on paid parking why can't they keep the station open for more hours or hire a caretaker like they have in Durand to open and close the station? Closing the station at 2pm or 5 pm when you have the evening train and about 7-9 buses after those hours doesn't seem customer friendly.

Amtrak is not listed as one of the sponsors of the building. Do not know whether Amtrak has signed a lease for the new station yet. The platform needs work.

Apparently the big cheese at CATA have a private bathroom and kitchen in the new station.

[TrainWatcher]

The current property has a "caretaker" in the form of the Amtrak station agent there, and IMHO he does a fine job the few times I have dropped by LNS to see Amtrak arrive. I think with the new property it'll be Amtrak's job to probably keep the place up, although if I ever go to the depot, I'm not really sure I'll like the "pay to park" idea. With Dearborn's new depot all Amtrak passengers can park for free, so how would one leave their car for even an overnight stay in Chicago and not worry about the meter running out and getting your car towed?

[J T]

With Dearborn's new depot all Amtrak passengers can park for free, so how would one leave their car for even an overnight stay in Chicago and not worry about the meter running out and getting your car towed?

The same way it happens at airports when you pay to park your car for several days or weeks.

[MiddleMI]

The Capital Area Transportation Authority (CATA), the local transit agency, is the builder and operator of this site. I was told by CATA that they wanted - and still very much plan - to upgrade the actual platform, but they didn't have the money to buy it from CN, and CN sure as hell isn't going to refurbish it out of the kindness of their heart. CATA actually had to rebid the project (might have even been twice), so they literally had no extra money to spend trying to work out something with CN to redo the platform. I'd have been nice if Amtrak or CN had kicked in a bit extra to redo the platform to go with the new station. Amtrak and MDOT either together or individually, can't quite remember, kicked in $500,000 for the project, but the bulk of it came from an US DOT grant. CATA had tried to get a TIGER grant when they first started out, which would have allowed them a bit more room to manuever, but I don't believe they were ever granted that specific grant and got something smaller.

Either way, that traffic circulation on site is so many times better than the old site and shack it's not even funny. As it now stands, you've got city buses, Greyhound, Indian Trails, and Megabus all fighting for access to the site ontop of the actual train passengers with the driveway RIGHT next to the railroad tracks. Needless to say, traffic can get extremely bad with all of this jockying. The new layout finally allows for long-term parking which is the part of this project closest to the front of the site. This allows for short-term parking/drop-offs/pick-ups at the middle of the site in a circle driveway so local train passengers get priority for drop-offs and pick-ups. This further pushes back the buse "depot" part of this project to the far end of the side giving the buses room to manuever around their own circle. Basically, it seperates the traffic and different modes to ease congestion instead of the bullrush that's currently the rule. The driveway is also moved further down the block away from the tracks so that the CATA buses at the stop on the street get more room.

As for the actual station building, while the hours are not currently great for the scehdule, there will be slightly better protection from the elements as the station will have overhangs all around it to at least project from light rains and such. The project could have been better, but even the compromised project is ten times better than what is there now. It's an embarrassment that one of the most used stations along the line has had to put up with the MSU old storage shack for a station.

Pictures courtesy of the constructor, Laux Construction, from about two weeks ago:











As for the "special" CATA restroom, I'm sure there will be an employee restroom for the Amtrak agent and whatever other employees are at the center during business hours. There will also be customers restrooms, one of which is pictured above.

[J T]

Wow, quite an upgrade! Thanks for posting the pics. It's been a while since I've ventured near Trowbridge/Harrison and I hadn't seen any of the construction taking place.

[MiddleMI]

Wow, quite an upgrade! Thanks for posting the pics. It's been a while since I've ventured near Trowbridge/Harrison and I hadn't seen any of the construction taking place.

Because it's so much further back on the property than the current station, unless you are on the sidewalk on the westside of Harrison, you'll miss it. I've driven both north and southbound, and you have to be looking at the site to really see to the back to see the station. That would change when they demolish the old storage warehouse that is the current station.

The original iteration of the project was much larger. It would have included a two or three floor parking garage if I remember correctly, but they didn't get enough buy in from any of the local or national parties to make it work.

[jrgerber]

I agree with some of the comments previously posted. The fact is patrons of the new station will be paying more $$$ if they choose to park there. I've not seen any published parking rates. And yes while the outside shelter and overall facilities are improved, the fact is the outside shelter wouldn't be much comfort in minus 10 below zero windchills or summer thunderstorms. Another fact is people with small children and the handicapped will find its a long walk to any public restrooms once the station is closed. Yes I know there is a Greyhound agent who locks up after the Amtrak agent but still have a multi million dollar facility that closes at 2pm or 530pm depending on the day isn't ideal. Why not use some of the parking money to hire a second shift agent or caretaker?

[MiddleMI]

Just so you know - WKAR did a story about this back in May - the restrooms are located in such a way that they will be able to be accessed from outside the station, so they will be accessible even after the main waiting area is closed. I believe along with this there is another small indoor section with a few benches of cut off from the main waiting room that can be accessed after closing time. Apparently, the doors will be on a timer; how exactly this works (if you'd need some kind of pass or something to access it) I'm not sure, but I know the bathrooms will be accessible 24/7.

I'm not going to let you get away with continuing to try and keep making this absolutely bizarre point about parking. There is no way you're going to spin the parking situation at the current station as somehow superior to the new set up. That parking is as big a part of this project as it is in a station patronized almost entirely by students who get to the station by bus or car or on foot is kind of amazing. As for long-term parking, it's currently first-come/first-serve, and since there is no seperation of long-term and drop-off parking it's less than it actually is so that it's nearly non-existent. You are not going to find any support for whining about the lack of free, long-term parking at a public facility. That is not a reasonable criticism particularly given the focus of this particular station (students). The parking reconfiguration is actually a bigger deal/improvement for those of us who have used this station than the redone station building. You are not going to spin that as somehow being force than the previous configuration. Sorry. Yeah, you got me a little annoyed.

[SD80MAC]

Most (all?) of the other Amtrak stations around here have free long-term parking. So yeah, the old station had that going for it over the new one.

[J T]

With a larger parking lot, I'm guessing part of the reason for paid parking is to discourage sports fans from parking in that lot on game days at MSU. It would be nice if they had some type of validation for parking with the purchase of a train ticket.

[jrgerber]

I am not trying to "spin" anything but apparently someone else is with a vested interest. My interest in this topic is to see ridership continue to grow and Amtrak and the bus companies to take care of their patrons because the current situation (outside of free parking) has been lacking with lack of adequate shelter and access to restroom facilities once the station closes. Consider that at one time the station was open to 10pm with a ticket machine. What good is a ticket machine honestly when the station closes at 2pm and the customers can't get access to it?

Question: Is it CATA job to inform the customers about the new station and its advantages? One segment on public TV isn't going to it.

I pay what I consider a fairly healthy tax assessment to CATA just for the record.

[Steve B]

MiddleMi, whoever said the bathrooms would remain accessible is full of BS. There are 3 vestibules. None have direct access to a bathroom. I verifed that by looking into all the windows yesterday evening.

CATA isn't going to just leave the inner doors unlocked at night either.

I'll have to go with jrgerber on the parking situation. There was plenty of free long term parking before, except during a couple of holidays, which was understandable.

[jrgerber]

Thanks Steve.

I like some verification as to why there purportly is seperate bathroom and kitchen for CATA.

Those of us who live in the Lansing area realize that those who run the Board of Power and Light and CATA regard the rest of us as ignorant serfs and feel "entitled".

The delays and funding of this project speaks for themselves.

[jrgerber]

Just some follow up questions and issues regarding the new station:

1. Since most of the money for the new station is from federal grant money, why is or does CATA find it necessary to charge for parking? Where do the parking revenues go to and for what purpose? I know CATA had public comment I doubt members of the public told CATA please charge us for parking at the new station.

2. I noticed that Amtrak was not one of the partners in the new station? Why is that? Does Amtrak have a lease agreement for the new station?

3. What the arrangements with the bus companies especially Megabus and the new station? Do they pay access fees to CATA?

4. MSU is leasing the land. Interesting how they got three vacant buildings cleared off using federal dollars. What is the lease agreement between CATA and MSU for the land?

I'm sure since MSU and CATA are public agencies that some of this is available to the curious public ( like me). Any links to the information would be helpful.

[Tim]

From the 10/7/13 Lansing State Journal
"MSU donated the property, recently appraised at $2.5 million, to the project as an in-kind grant match."

[Tim]

Only two years behind but on budget or at least that's what they say;

CATA BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING 8/19/15
Multi Modal Gateway
Sandy Draggoo reported that the Multi Modal Gateway is looking good and encouraged Board members to stop by to see the facility. She also pointed out the action items regarding tenant leases in today’s Board packet. Once those leases are completed and signed, the tenants will move into the new facility and the remainder of the site work will be completed. The project is slated to be complete this fall.

From a 7/23/12 Lansing State Journal article; Design and engineering of the building could take between three and six months, said Debbie Alexander, CATA’s assistant executive director. Construction is projected to take about a year, although an official groundbreaking date hasn't been set. She estimated the project could be finished by the end of 2013.

[MiddleMI]

A huge reason for the delay is that when they put out the bid for it, all bids came back overbudget. It's the reason why you'll have this beautiful new building on a crappy, deteriorating platform. What they ended up doing to get it to fit into the budget was reduce the square footage of the actual station building/head house and took out the reconstruction of the asphalt platform. BTW, this kind of has to be on budget as CATA is using very little of it's own money. It's my understanding that almost all of the capital costs are local, state, and federal grants. CATA won't have any extra of its own money to spend on anything major until its millage is back up, which I think is next year.

[Tim]

Yes the current depot going up bears no resemblance to the one on the original signage. I think it was not that the original building came in so much as over budget as that they spent an excessive amount on planning. Notes gathered from several sources give a total price of $7.28m which means about $2.2m was spent on the planning for one building and the parking lot. It didn't help that demolition work didn't start until mid August, 2014. It will, however, be a huge improvement over the "temporary" lumber yard office in use since 1974.

[MiddleMI]

It is true they spent more on design work than they had anticipated, but that led to the station bid coming $2 million over budget (and this was the lowest bidder) in the first bid for construction work. The current contractors bid was the middle bid in the first round, which came in $2.5 million over the remaining budget ($4,939,866).

[Steve B]

So have the leases finally been signed? If not, why?