Union Station Renovation Not Likely To Please All

As a master plan to address overcrowding and delay issues at downtown’s Union Station is developed by the Chicago Department of Transportation, organizations advocating for a more substantial overhaul of the transit center say the project needs to take into consideration the growing need for high-speed rail travel.

CDOT is taking a pragmatic approach to the renovation, starting out in the coming months by fixing small problems and later transferring Metra lines to a nearby station. The agency has been criticized for extravagant proposals that were not fulfilled in the past.
“For a year and a half now we’ve been working to improve the inside layout of the station, which operates at capacity during rush hours,” said Marc Magliari, a spokesman for Amtrak, the government-owned corporation running Union Station since 1984.
The project is in a fairly early stage, Magliari said, and CDOT is working with Metra and Amtrak to evaluate what issues need to be tackled first.
Rick Harnish, executive director of Chicago-based Midwest High Speed Rail Association, said even as the project adds some necessary improvements to the station, it lacks a more “visionary” approach for the transportation hub. “The plan has a number of steps, which will be built upon each previous one,” Harnish said. “But their vision of the future of the station should be more ambitious.”
Harnish mentioned the inclusion of high-speed trains in the project, which can reach more than 200 mph, greatly reducing travel times.
As part of the overhaul, in the next two years Metra train lines will be transferred from Union Station to LaSalle Street Station as it currently operates at below capacity levels, and at that location people can easily transfer to CTA trains and buses in the Loop, Magliari said.
Last remodeled in 1992, Union Station receives more than 300 trains each weekday transporting about 120,000 passengers in and out of Chicago. Its number of trains is expected to grow 40 percent by 2040.
For Dick Simpson, professor and head of the department of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago, both passenger and freight train traffic into and out of Union Station and the rail lines themselves are a “tangled mess” and in need of great improvement.
“We are a major bottle neck for freight trains which sometimes have to wait for 24 hours to get through Chicago,” Simpson said. “Fixing the railways is a major need for the city and the state.”
In December, CDOT and Amtrak held a public meeting at Union Station where people had a chance to weigh in the project and hear experts and demonstrations of ideas that could become part of the final plan, expected to be announced in the coming months.
Midwest High Speed Rail Association has built a website called Downtown Airport to show the group’s future vision of Union Station. Commuters can still send their ideas and comments, which will be forwarded to city officials, Harnish said.
Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-Cicero) could not be reached for a comment.