# Union Station Capacity and the Chicago Hub



## Anderson (Nov 23, 2014)

This is one of those questions that is almost macabre to ask, really, but how much more capacity does Chicago's Union Station have to spare? I know that Amtrak does not want to use more than one station in downtown, but CUS is basically a pair of stub-end terminals...and when I look at the mess of long-term plans to run various services into Chicago, I do wonder how many of them CUS can actually handle.

This question butts up against the consistent efforts to route everything that isn't a commuter train into CUS, to the point of looking at very expensive rebuilds on various tracks. I know we're not at capacity at the moment, but I can't help but wonder if the long-term plans for Michican, Illinois, Iowa, and the floated ideas for Ohio and so forth could all actually fit.

(I'm assuming that the main issues are going to be on the south side; from what I can tell, the north side seems to be fine, and on top of that there aren't nearly as many plans for piling services up on that side of the station...just Hiawatha expansion and, in theory, Madison/Minneapolis services and the NCH...which doesn't seem nearly so daunting as all the other stuff.)


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## afigg (Nov 23, 2014)

The Union Station Master Plan website and documents list the goal of supporting a 40% expansion in the number of trains by 2040. If some Metra trains are rerouted to LaSalle station, that also frees up more capacity for intercity passenger trains.

The Second Stage Technical Memorandum No.1 (24 page PDF) from December, 2013 shows just how much unused or poorly used space there is at Chicago Union Station that can be better used for passenger waiting areas and traffic flow. Lots of diagrams and rendering in the technical memorandum that are worth looking at to get an overview of how the station can be reconfigured and modernized to handle more people. There is a lot of underused space that was once used for mail and baggage.

Striking how Chicago Union Station has in common with NY Penn Station, DC Union Station, Boston South Station in that they were all rebuilt in the 1960s to early 1980s to handle reduced passenger traffic and turned over a lot of space to retail. Or put a building on top and squeeze down the passenger boarding areas. With passenger and commuter trains making a comeback, all 4 are bursting at the seams at peak rush hour periods. Meanwhile 30th Street was largely left alone (or unmolested) and thus can handle the traffic it gets. Now we will spend billions increasing capacity and modernizing the CHI, WAS, NYP, BOS stations to get back what they had in many ways.


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## Anderson (Nov 23, 2014)

It's interesting to mention 30th Street Station, since of the ones you mention it is the one that is probably least convenient to downtown in many respects (though to be fair, if I'm not mistaken there was and still is regular service to Suburban Station). None of the others really required such a transfer (NYP being right by 34th Street, for example).

30th Street aside, Washington Union probably has the least damage done to it. Yes, the mall is there, but IIRC the net impact of that whole overhaul was the loss of about one car's worth of capacity on each of the upper-level tracks. Dropping the tracks on the west side to WMATA, while less than desirable in certain regards, arguably counts as an improvement of sorts (as it allowed good mass transit connections). There is also probably some work that could be done to expand passenger waiting areas...for example, Sbarro's lease is probably not eternal. The issues at WAS are more related to platform access and "security" than anything...they're symptomatic of a stub-end station with neither over-platform (think Penn Station or the plans for Chicago Union Station) nor under-platform (think LA Union Station) access.

NYP and CHI have very deep-seated issues with respect to crowding. In Chicago's case, the waiting rooms as handled now are a mess...but if I'm not mistaken, that particular issue is more down to how Amtrak opted to lay things out and not the (direct) result of the 1969 demolition: An open waiting area (think NYP) would probably have a bit more capacity.


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## cirdan (Nov 24, 2014)

Chicago Union Station is just one of a whole number of passenger stations that existed in Chicago prior to Amtrak. I'm not an expert on Chicago history so maybe somebody can fill in the gaps here, but i understand most of the others were closed and the land sold off and so cannot now be recovered. So even restoring CUS to its former glory and functionaility will not put back all the lost passenger rail capacity that this city once had. Thus assuming that passenger rail will continue to grow, it is legitimate to ask questions about the longer term prospects of enhancing capacity.

Could they maybe dig down at CUS and create a second lower level with further tracks? Sounds tricky due to the proximity of the river.

Or what about Van Buren Street? To me it looks as if there's a lot of space there where tracks were removed. Could that be reclaimed for passenger rail? That location is more central than CUS.


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## MikefromCrete (Nov 24, 2014)

Van Buren Street is busy enough with Metra Electric and South Shore traffic. There's no way to fit in intercity traffic. There's no lots of space there since most of the trackage is used for car storage on weekdays.

LaSalle Street station is under utilized but current plans call for moving the Southwest Service there from Union Station. Central, Dearborn and Grand Central are long gone and could never be reactivated/.

Plans under consideration at Union Station do involve tracks underneath the existing building.


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