Integrated Stations

[RRUserious]

St Paul MN is getting a restored depot, very pretty, with bus, light rail, and Amtrak connecting there. Made me think about the most integrated terminals I've visited. I'd say that Chicago, Toronto, and Everett Washinton seemed designed to make connecting convenient. One thing missing in Toronto is that I don't think Canadian Greyhound is in their mix. But I've certainly not visited most big cities of the world, so I'm wondering if anyone achieved more integration than places like Chicago and Toronto.

 

[TimePeace]

Boston South Station serves Amtrak, various commuter rail, and several bus lines.

And the Portland (Maine) Transportation Center is home to the Amtrak Downeaster as well as Concord Coach Lines.

 

[BCL]

San Jose Diridon perhaps.

http://en.wikipedia....Diridon_Station

It primarily serves Caltrain, but with regular Amtrak (CS) and Amtrak California (Capitol Corridor) service. Altamont Commuter Express also terminates there. There is a VTA bus stop there as well as VTA light rail. Eventually the BART extension will reach San Jose. They also run Amtrak thruway coaches.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

WIL is across the street from the bus terminal, has local buses & SEPTA trains.

 

[jebr]

St Paul MN is getting a restored depot, very pretty, with bus, light rail, and Amtrak connecting there. Made me think about the most integrated terminals I've visited. I'd say that Chicago, Toronto, and Everett Washinton seemed designed to make connecting convenient. One thing missing in Toronto is that I don't think Canadian Greyhound is in their mix. But I've certainly not visited most big cities of the world, so I'm wondering if anyone achieved more integration than places like Chicago and Toronto.

Chicago actually isn't that unified. There's a couple of Thruway buses, but other than that it's just some local bus routes and some Metra routes. There's no bus bay for buses to use, Greyhound is a few blocks away, and even the L is a 5-10 minute walk. To be fair, Megabus boards a block south, but I'm not counting on that to last forever.

Unfortunately, SPUD won't be terribly unified, either. The Greyhound and Jefferson Lines hub will still be at Hawthorne. Jefferson Lines will stop there, but only on routes that already stop in St. Paul. That means:

To Milwaukee via Green Bay at 10:25 AM

To Minneapolis from Duluth (connections at Hawthorne to Des Moines and Kansas City) at 10:30 AM and 3:20 PM.

To Minneapolis from Milwaukee/Green Bay at about 5:00 PM.

To Duluth via Minneapolis at 11:50 AM.

And that's it, other than casino bus runs and local bus routes. The light rail will offer a connection to Minneapolis in 2014, but even that doesn't make it very unified; Hawthorne is a good 3-4 block walk from the Hennepin Ave/Warehouse District station.

 

[SarahZ]

KAL is the hub for Amtrak, Greyhound and other passenger bus lines, and the local bus system (one bus route goes directly to the airport). We do not have light rail.

 

[stlouielady]

St Louis. Amtrak, Greyhound, city bus system (Metro bus), and the Metro light rail system are all served from that station.

 

[afigg]

The contemporary term is Intermodal station, although multi-modal is sometimes used.

WAS (DC Union Station) qualifies as a comprehensive intermodal station: Amtrak, MARC & VRE commuter rail, DC Metrorail, new bus terminal facility in the parking garage for Greyhound, Megabus, Boltbus; car rental desks, taxi stand, bike rental facility, a Capital Bikeshare station, and is in walking distance of Capitol Hill & the National Mall. {edit: compare those options at WAS to 1971 when Amtrak started.]

There has been a major push in recent years by many cities to upgrade to or build intermodal. There were a number of TIGER and HSIPR grants for intermodal station projects. Amtrak will be a major beneficiary of these station projects by providing local or regional transit options compared to a Amshack station outside of town with only a parking lot, maybe a taxi stand, and nothing in walking distance.

This is a good thread topic for putting together a list of the intermodal stations under construction, funded, and in advanced planning. From Miami Central station to Springfield MA to various California station projects.

 

[rusty spike]

As for as stations I have visited, my vote would be L.A. Union Station...Amtrak, Amtrak California, Amtrak Thruway, Metrolink, MetroRail. and local busses and shuttles. Unfortunately for "dog" lovers, no Greyhound here AFIK.

 

[RRUserious]

I wonder if places like Chicago, Toronto, and Everett Washington just got started right. In the Twin Cities, things were always scattered hither and yon. Retrofitting can be quite a chore. How Intermodal are Penn Station and Grand Central Station?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Reading these posts reminded me that WIL also has taxis and, I think, at least one car rental desk.

 

[SarahZ]

I wonder if places like Chicago, Toronto, and Everett Washington just got started right.

That's an excellent point. KAL used to be solely Amtrak and Greyhound/other. They remodeled the area in front of the station to accommodate the city buses. Before that, the city buses parked downtown, meaning anyone using the train station had to walk 2-3 blocks to catch a bus or train. (It was also a pain the butt for traffic, since the buses often created major chaos and traffic jams.)

I'm not sure if the residents voted on it or if it was a city council measure. I was in ARB at the time. I was pleasantly surprised when I moved back to KAL and noticed the change.

 

[the_traveler]

As for as stations I have visited, my vote would be L.A. Union Station...Amtrak, Amtrak California, Amtrak Thruway, Metrolink, MetroRail. and local busses and shuttles. Unfortunately for "dog" lovers, no Greyhound here AFIK.

For the 'dog, the answer is yes and no. :blink: The Thruway bus between LAX and LV is a Greyhound bus that stops at LAUS, but the actual Greyhound terminal is quite far away.

 

[the_traveler]

You can also consider KIN intermodal. Besides Amtrak, it has RIPTA (the local/city/state bus) operating 2 routes from KIN, as well as numerous shuttles and taxis. In a few years (hopefully), there are plans for MBTA to serve BOS from KIN. And the station is also the start of a walk/run/bike trail along the Narragansett Pier RR's ROW.

 

[jebr]

I wonder if places like Chicago, Toronto, and Everett Washington just got started right. In the Twin Cities, things were always scattered hither and yon. Retrofitting can be quite a chore. How Intermodal are Penn Station and Grand Central Station?

However, the Twin Cities always had the Minneapolis vs. St. Paul problem, since they are both major cities in their own right. Each of them wanted the major attractions, and in terms of transportation both cities have large populations (285,000 for Minneapolis, 185,000 for St. Paul.) These days, it's obvious that Minneapolis is dominant, especially when considering the suburbs. If one were to draw a line north/south roughly following the city border between Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minneapolis definitely has the advantage, especially when considering the sprawl that is starting to blend into St. Cloud's metropolitan area.

That being said, the history of the two cities is still there, and I'm hoping that The Interchange in Minneapolis becomes more dominant, especially with bus transportation. Amtrak should look at also using one of the Northstar stations once they move into SPUD to offer a better alternative to those in the western suburbs and those who need to use a car to access Amtrak. Fridley would be easiest, since the parking lot there is almost never full and it's just off of 694, but Anoka or Big Lake would also be good alternatives. The only difficulty is that the eastbound Empire Builder runs at roughly the same time as the southbound Northstar runs to bring commuters to Minneapolis, which makes scheduling stops a bit of a challenge (especially when Amtrak isn't the greatest at keeping time on the Empire Builder.)

 

[BCL]

I know most of the talk is about combined ground transportation, but......

I started looking stuff up, and the airport in Milwaukee actually has an Amtrak station on site. It's about 3/4 mile from the airport terminal, but has a free shuttle to the terminal. It's unstaffed but they have QT terminals. I'm not 100% sure, but the picture does look like there are flight arrivals/departures on two video boards in the train station.

http://en.wikipedia....ailroad_Station

Another place I'm thinking about is the Millbrae intermodal station near San Francisco International Airport. I knew someone who used to work near there, and it used to be just a Caltrain station with a free shuttle to the airport. Now it's a large station with a big indoor parking garage. The shuttles are gone and one normally takes BART to transfer to the airport. BART gates are right at the northbound Caltrain platform. The way to the other platform is to go up stairs/escalators and back down to platform level. If Amtrak ever decided to run a route to San Francisco, they could possibly negotiate using this station.

 

[afigg]

As for as stations I have visited, my vote would be L.A. Union Station...Amtrak, Amtrak California, Amtrak Thruway, Metrolink, MetroRail. and local busses and shuttles. Unfortunately for "dog" lovers, no Greyhound here AFIK.

Like DC Union Station, compare LA Union Station to the situation when Amtrak started in 1971. Something I think is overlooked is by the 1960s, so many street car and interurban trolley systems had been shut down and abandoned. The train stations were often in emptying downtowns, with the local bus terminals put somewhere else in the city. Outside of the major Northeast cities and Chicago, there were likely few if any local transit options when you arrived at the train station on Amtrak. That is, if the downtown train station had not already been vacated.

Since A-day, cities like DC and LA have built local transit systems with the restored intercity train station as the hub. The growth of light rail. sreetcars, BRT, and heavy rail transit (in a few cities) combined with new or restored stations are one of the underlying reasons, IMO, that is fueling the growth of Amtrak ridership. And will continue to do so. People can take the train to the city and get around the city without needing a car or spending $$ on taxis.

The Transport Politic blog has a nice summary this week of the local and regional transit projects in the US and Canada opening in 2013, underway, or funded & starting construction in 2013. LA, San Francisco bay region, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, Twin Cities, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte are cities outside of the NEC that have a range of local transit projects being built. Once a city has a comprehensive local rial transit and commuter rail system, a logical step is to support improved and faster intercity train service to connect to.

 

[afigg]

How Intermodal are Penn Station and Grand Central Station?

NYP? Qualifies as an intermodal mecca. Amtrak, LIRR, NJ Transit, two subway stations for the 1,2,3 & A, C, E trains to get you all over NYC, PATH station a block away, taxis, car rental, Megabus and Boltbus near by, Madison Square Garden upstairs. and Manhattan outside.

Grand Central Terminal does not have intercity train service anymore (beyond what MNRR provides) but has 3 Metro-North lines, NYC Subway #7, 4/5/6, 42 St Shuttle lines, taxis, and is in the middle of Midtown Manhattan. By the end of this decade, Grand Central should have a operating LIRR concourse under the 2 existing track levels.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Although Amtrak is not in the picture, the South Bend, IN., airport serves airplanes (natch), South Shore Line trains, local bus service, Greyhound and even buses to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.

 

[tonys96]

Fort Worth, Texas intermodal station has Amtrak, (TE & HF) along with commuter rail (TRE) Greyhound, local buses (the T) and car rentals.

 

[the_traveler]

Airplanes at an airport - who woulda thunk it? :giggle:

 

[rusty spike]

Airplanes at an airport - who woulda thunk it? :giggle:

They say the landing is a tad softer at an airport than in the Hudson River!

 

[Ted Bell]

Salt Lake City's Intermodal Hub serves Amtrak, FrontRunner (Commuter Rail), TRAX (Light Rail), UTA Bus lines and Greyhound. There is also a bike rental and repair shop.

 

[Ryan]

BWI also hosts am Amtrak/MARC station, connectivity to the Baltimore light rail and WMATA bus, but I think of it more as an airport with good transportation and not a true "integrated station" like some of the others being discussed.

 

[FriskyFL]

Amtrak will (hopefully) be moving to the new Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) sometime in 2013. In addition to Amtrak, S FloridaTri-Rail, Miami-Dade Metrorail, Miami-Dade Transit, Greyhound, and the airport rental car facilities will call the MIC home. Of course, the MIC is ajacent to MIA airport, a short ride on the MIA people mover.

But of course, this being Miami-Dade County, did anyone think that this project would come in on time and on budget? Of course not...this, direct from the "measure once, cut twice" department....the new platform is oh, about 220 feet too short, resulting in 25th Street to be blocked every time the Silver Meteor drops by.

http://www.local10.com/news/Transportation-hub-snafu-could-cost-millions/-/1717324/18006764/-/ffxu97z/-/index.html

Amtrak's spokeswoman Christina Leeds told Local 10's Christina Vazquez in an e-mail: "Amtrak always cautioned the design team that Amtrak trains would block 25th St. due to train length."

$89 million already spent on the new station, $2 billion total on the MIC, $6 billion on the recent MIA airport expansion, what's another $4-5 million of taxpayer money?