The Union Station Transit Center isn’t even big enough for CTA, with a couple of peak hour routes (IIRC, 1 and 121) still stopping out on the street instead of in the terminal.
True. Looking back on the Union Station Master Plan, the transit center was supposed to have four lanes, not three, with separate vertical access to each boarding island. Some very early renderings even showed an electrified light rail or streetcars in the fourth lane (maybe the original intent of Loop Link?)
The footprint of the new tower at street level was supposed to occupy the southern end of the lot (containing the elevator core), with the tower being built over the transit center. Instead, the developers decided against the concept of a shorter tower with massive floor plates to a much taller tower with smaller floor plates that would front along Canal, which likely explains why the fourth bus lane was lost.
Also, the little park was never part of the plan. But, I assume, the developer realized any future tenant would have demanded on-site parking, plus some parking for Amtrak passengers driving to Union Station. Perhaps, when and if the day comes that parking isn't so important, perhaps the lot under the park could be converted to new stub-end tracks for trains coming in from the south. Then, either extend the walkway that services the transit center or build a walkway under Jackson that comes up into the main hall.
I'm still scratching my head on the Greyhound terminals situation.
First Group first announced Greyhound was up for sale in 2019. In late 2020, First Group sold stations in LA, Denver, and Ottawa. In mid-2021, they sold the Columbus, Cincinnati, and Louisville stations. Greyhound was then sold to FlixBus in October, 2021.
At the time of sale,
Tech Crunch reported this-
Greyhound properties with an estimated net market value of c.$176 million will be retained by FirstGroup; they will initially be leased back to Greyhound at market rates but are expected to be sold over the next three to five years.
In point of fact, First Group first announced the sale of the remaining stations (including Chicago) in September 2022, a mere
11 months after Flix acquired Greyhound. Sale was finalized to Twenty Lakes Holdings, part of Alden Capital, in December, 2022.
What happened here? Did Flix find the real estate too expensive? Were they counting on the three to five year window to rent the stations until they were able to arrive at a better solution? Did First Group pull the rug out from under Flix, to make a quicker exit from North America? Was Flix going to try the MegaBus method of paying for passenger facilities only when absolutely necessary? Enquiring minds want to know.
The area near the Greyhound station has grown in recent years, with the success of the Old Post Office, the new BMO Tower, and the current rehabilitation of the former Northern Trust building on Canal, as well as multiple high rise residential (mostly along the north side of 290, along Van Buren). But with interest rates inching ever higher and the concerns over the strength of the economy have made the risks of speculative real estate too great for many developers right now.
That might bode well for the fate of the Chicago station, for the time being. Twenty Lakes can easily afford to hold onto the station and collect rent from Greyhound until the property values and demand pick up during the next cycle. Hopefully it buys time to find a new station location.
The question could be asked whether there is any real value by locating Greyhound near Amtrak. Before moving to its current location, Greyhound did just fine for 40 years with its downtown station on Randolph and Clark, close to CTA rapid transit, but nowhere near commuter or intercity rail.
I like the idea of a communal bus station, like Boston's mentioned above, but does Chicago have the wealth of bus service companies Boston currently enjoys? If regional rail routes to destinations like Madison and Peoria were to come to fruition, there would be far less demand for buses, as routes from VanGalder and Peoria Charter would likely evaporate, creating an even smaller pool of Chicago-area operators for a facility like Boston's.
The YIMBY article mentioned the Chicago Greyhound station sees 500,000 passengers a year, 55 buses a day. That averages out to 25 passengers per bus per day boarding in Chicago. I know nothing about how this works, but could Greyhound handle that many passengers in a smaller footprint, while not relegating them to street corner steerage class?
On the subject of MegaBus, I can recall, about 6 or 7 years ago, CDOT/IDOT offered MegaBus the space under the Eisenhower Expressway/I-290 at Clinton, right across the street from the CTA Blue Line station, to use for a passenger facility. At the time, there was an extra lane on Clinton that could have been used as a boarding lane.
MegaBus never moved on that idea, continued boarding passengers on a corner further south on Canal at Polk, and would eventually withdraw from Chicago and other markets. The extra lane on Clinton has since been converted to a two-way bike lane.