Saint Paul Union Depot

[Didier]

I don't disagree with any of that.

[at40man]

Most people haven't been acquainted with a built-out transit network, so it may make some scratch their heads about why the Green Line would be out front.

However, in Europe the local transportation is often found out front of the station, rather than at the gates. I do think it makes more sense for future LRT lines to go under the waiting room, with the Green Line acting as the "local" transportation option that has the stop in the front.

I have a hard time caring too much what the nay-sayers say. Despite the fact that it takes months to design and build a new signaling system with multiple railroads involved, they mocked Union Depot for lack of trains on opening day. Despite that good testing always involves trial runs, they mocked the test of the locomotive a month back. It will never end with these folks. I even saw someone complaining about the vending machines inside the Depot, saying they "ruin the historic character".

What I really would like to see are more bus connections happening at the Depot. To catch an express bus to Mpls, for instance, one has to walk a couple blocks to the first stop. Why not have some of the bus routes like the 94 start or stop at the Depot? It would go a long way to turn it into a true transit hub.

[mplser]

"Union Depot changes for Amtrak approved by Ramsey County commissioners"

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... sey-county

[mulad]

The building interior is now on Google Streetview: http://goo.gl/maps/wz6WO

[jebr]

I have a hard time caring too much what the nay-sayers say. Despite the fact that it takes months to design and build a new signaling system with multiple railroads involved, they mocked Union Depot for lack of trains on opening day.

I'd have to agree with the "nay-sayers" on the delay on getting trains into SPUD. SPUD was in retrofitting for at least a couple years, and in the planning stages for longer than that. It shouldn't take that long to plan and put in the switches necessary to get a train into an intermodal station with a heavy emphasis on train travel.

Trains should have been operating out of SPUD on opening day. It was a failure of planning that there's still not a train going into SPUD, and won't be until near the end of the year, optimistically.

[at40man]

I have a hard time caring too much what the nay-sayers say. Despite the fact that it takes months to design and build a new signaling system with multiple railroads involved, they mocked Union Depot for lack of trains on opening day.

I'd have to agree with the "nay-sayers" on the delay on getting trains into SPUD. SPUD was in retrofitting for at least a couple years, and in the planning stages for longer than that. It shouldn't take that long to plan and put in the switches necessary to get a train into an intermodal station with a heavy emphasis on train travel.

Trains should have been operating out of SPUD on opening day. It was a failure of planning that there's still not a train going into SPUD, and won't be until near the end of the year, optimistically.

I agree that a train should have been ready to roll out of there on opening day. However, the "nay-sayers" use that as justification that we should not build mass transit but instead focus on roads which

I don't know why the delay occurred, but Union Pacific is notoriously difficult to deal with. Plus, the ownership of trackage through that area is complicated due to historic easements and the level of freight traffic that rolls through.

And though Amtrak is a year late, it doesn't change the fact that SPUD was positioned for slow growth, as we build out our transit network.

[mattaudio]

I don't like projects that cost $243 million and are positioned for "slow growth" when we have so many glaring deficiencies elsewhere.

[at40man]

I don't like projects that cost $243 million and are positioned for "slow growth" when we have so many glaring deficiencies elsewhere.

Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't necessary...

We need to have a true transit network that takes in the "long-view" picture of exactly how this network will work and will be built out. Restoring the Twin Cities crown jewel of the railway system to act as a hub for future growth is considerably more important than running streetcars down Nicollet or around downtown St Paul.

The less we focus on how all these forms of transit need to work together means we will simply tackle projects with "glaring deficiencies" and cause our transit network to be even more piecemeal than it already is.

[talindsay]

I don't like projects that cost $243 million and are positioned for "slow growth" when we have so many glaring deficiencies elsewhere.

Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't necessary...

We need to have a true transit network that takes in the "long-view" picture of exactly how this network will work and will be built out. Restoring the Twin Cities crown jewel of the railway system to act as a hub for future growth is considerably more important than running streetcars down Nicollet or around downtown St Paul.

The less we focus on how all these forms of transit need to work together means we will simply tackle projects with "glaring deficiencies" and cause our transit network to be even more piecemeal than it already is.

Look, SPUD is completely unnecessary as a piece of transportation infrastructure. If everything goes the way transit nerds like us want it to go, it will still be decades before there's enough demand for both long-distance rail travel and core transit transfers in downtown St. Paul to demand anything beyond the Midway station for Amtrak and a simple transit station in St. Paul.

I could think of a dozen or more ways to spend $243 million that would be far more effective at solving our transit needs. Downtown St. Paul simply doesn't need a major intermodal transit station.

But in my opinion, that misses the point. SPUD is about historic preservation, which is a good thing. The federal money contributed, if I recall correctly, was out of historic preservation funds, not transportation funds; though there may have been a bit of both. I think this is an exciting and appropriate historic preservation project; as such, any actual transit use is secondary but welcome. If they can make good use of the station as an energetic transit center then great, it makes the historic preservation more visibly worthwhile. Understand though that its transportation function is likely never going to justify the money spent.

[LRV Op Dude]

To bad the Green Line does not go into the Union Depot. Does anyone know why they did not do that?

[FISHMANPET]

To bad the Green Line does not go into the Union Depot. Does anyone know why they did not do that?

It's been brought up quite a few times in the Green Line, and the reason is that it shouldn't. If you were taking the Green Line to then take a train at Amtrak, you would have to leave the platform and go to the ticket counter at the front of the building and then back to the platform. If you were going to the neighborhood then you have to walk from the platform out of the building rather than just being dropped off out front. It's kind of like if the Blue Line dropped you off at the airport at the gate. Either you have to go back to get through security, or you're stuck in the airport and you want to be somewhere else.

[ECtransplant]

People still buy tickets in person?

[talindsay]

People still buy tickets in person?

Yes, for Amtrak in my experience it seems the vast majority of MSP passengers buy tickets in person. I suspect the same is true of the long-haul buses. I'm not a big "digital divide" person but I'd suggest that in the US buses and trains are really relegated to "alternative transportation" which means they serve an audience which is less likely to be participating in the "digital economy" as we call it.

[mattaudio]

You mean their administrative assistant doesn't include boarding passes or tickets as part of the travel packet? Roughin it.

[MNdible]

The federal money contributed, if I recall correctly, was out of historic preservation funds, not transportation funds; though there may have been a bit of both.

I believe that the project received about $125 million in Federal funds, the bulk of them from transportation and stimulus sources.

[mattaudio]

Too bad we couldn't have had true rapid transit between Uptown, Downtown and St. Anthony shovel ready.

[at40man]

Look, SPUD is completely unnecessary as a piece of transportation infrastructure. If everything goes the way transit nerds like us want it to go, it will still be decades before there's enough demand for both long-distance rail travel and core transit transfers in downtown St. Paul to demand anything beyond the Midway station for Amtrak and a simple transit station in St. Paul.

By that measure, the Interchange is also unnecessary. In fact, adding a new platform to SPUD is much more practical and cost effective than boring tunnels under Minneapolis for the landlocked Interchange. At any rate, money was going to be spent on SPUD no matter what. The waiting room was neglected for decades, and I'm afraid had it been left in any other hands could have been at risk for demolition while various transportation services in the city were disconnected with no unity or thought to the traveler who uses them. If anything, SPUD needs to simply place more Metro Transit buses with SPUD as its starting point. I'm not quite sure why the 94 Express, for instance, doesn't start or terminate at Union Depot.

Just like when SPUD was constructed, we aren't planning for only immediate needs. We are planning for a functional multi-modal transportation network that can survive long-term. Heck, when Union Depot was built it was planned for triple the number of passengers it ever got when it was in its heyday.

I also do think there some level of bias against transit funding in St Paul by the pro-Minneapolis crowd - after all, money spent in St Paul improving transit probably doesn't benefit them. But the reverse is also true. I think some posters tend to forget that St Paul itself is a major hub of activity, whether it be the government entities located in the city to the innovations occurring daily at 3M and Ecolab, to the major industrial and manufacturing business that takes place in the Midway, to the numerous colleges and universities within its borders, to the beautiful historic neighborhoods.

Saint Paul isn't a suburb of Minneapolis, nor does it function as such. It deserves a multi-modal transportation hub to serve its side of the metro area just as much as Minneapolis does. The fact that we kept and restored our grand train station is a huge plus!

[talindsay]

By that measure, the Interchange is also unnecessary. Adding a new platform to SPUD is much more practical and cost effective than boring tunnels under Minneapolis for the landlocked Interchange.

Just like when SPUD was constructed, we aren't planning for only immediate needs. We are planning for a functional multi-modal transportation network that can survive long-term. Heck, when Union Depot was built it was planned for triple the number of passengers it ever got when it was in its heyday.

I also do think there some level of bias against transit funding in St Paul by the pro-Minneapolis crowd - after all, money spent in St Paul improving transit probably doesn't benefit them. But the reverse is also true. I think some posters tend to forget that St Paul itself is a major hub of activity, whether it be the government entities located in the city to the innovations occurring daily at 3M and Ecolab, to the major industrial and manufacturing business that takes place in the Midway, to the numerous colleges and universities within its borders, to the beautiful historic neighborhoods.

Saint Paul isn't a suburb of Minneapolis, nor does it function as such. It deserves a multi-modal transportation hub to serve its side of the metro area just as much as Minneapolis does. The fact that we kept and restored our grand train station is a huge plus!

Calm down, you may not have read the entirety of my post and I am not comparing this to "the Interchange" or saying anything about sleighting St. Paul. What I *am* saying is that the infrastructure provided by SPUD is completely unnecessary and unlikely to ever be necessary, but that as an historic preservation project SPUD is great - and the fact that we will be *able* to use it for transit is a major perk.

There is more platform space on the lower deck of SPUD than gets used in significant transit hubs of train-centric cities in Europe. For example, Bruges, Belgium is Belgium's second-largest train station and it has five platforms for ten tracks serving ten separate intercity lines, each of which run several trains each direction each day. By comparison, SPUD is built to have NINE platforms for EIGHTEEN tracks - nearly double the capacity of Bruges, even though we have exactly one intercity line with one train each direction per day. In the foreseeable future, if we transit people had our dream, we might have, what, one true intercity line with eight trains each direction per day, plus a line to Duluth, a line to Rochester, and some commuter-style lines to St. Cloud and Red Wing. Even if everything changed and high-speed intercity lines were run to Omaha and St. Louis direct, we wouldn't need a station as big as Bruges, never mind SPUD. Don't take offense to my statement before; the numbers clearly show that SPUD is *MUCH* bigger than anything the Twin Cities metro will need in the foreseeable future.

For historical preservation, it's great to be able to save it and might be worth the high cost if it gets decent transit utilization; but it's a historical preservation project that brings transportation use, not a properly-scaled solution to our transportation needs. If we were trying to make the most effective use of our transportation money we would have rehabbed and expanded Midway, given it a proper stop on the Green Line, and spent the remaining $300 million (combined savings of not doing Interchange or SPUD projects at an intercity scale) on actual transit. In many ways that would have made more sense, since both Downtown Minneapolis and Downtown Saint Paul are a short Green Line ride from Midway, while both the Interchange and SPUD require half the population to go the entire length of the Green Line.

[at40man]

I think we are in agreement, sometimes I just absolutely bristle when I see people yowling about SPUD. I am very grateful it has been returned to public use. It is undeniably one of the most beautiful buildings in the Twin Cities, and hasn't had a problem filling the cavernous space with various public and private events.

I just think about cities that demolished their train stations and now wish they had excess capacity like we do. Chicago's Union Station was severed, and it is disgraceful that the headhouse is completely underutilized while cramming the rest of the station functions into the underground bunker with insufficient space for passengers and trains.

Penn Station in NYC is even more of a mess with the demand far outstripping capacity. They probably wish that they had as much excess capacity as SPUD does - not to mention a structure that is even half as beautiful!

[Nick]

Whether or not to fund SPUD's restoration is a really good example of my recently-formulated philosophical argument that just because you can put together a really well-written, extensive argument in favor of locating all 32 NFL teams in the same city, it doesn't mean that that argument is any good.

It applies to lots of things: The St. Croix bridge, the 3A alignment, building a 1,000 foot tall spec office tower next to surface parking lots, etc. Sure, you used a lot of words to say that something is a good idea...but, no, obviously, no.