Amtrak is looking to build it. And Amtrak is expecting them to come.
“It” is a new Atlanta terminal. “Them” are the added customers and trains that could mean new growth for the federally run passenger rail service.
Amtrak is seeking to build a crossroads-type station in Atlanta that will connect to other urban transit such as MARTA, buses and perhaps light rail.
The preferred locations are near MARTA stations at Lenox, Doraville and Brookhaven, or at Atlantic Station, where one day it could connect to light rail or MARTA on a line to Cobb County. The station’s final destination may be determined by whatever local or state financial partners join Amtrak for the project.
The rail service envisions a modern facility with improved passenger comforts for waiting and baggage, public parking — the current station has none — and access to restaurants and shops.
Is all this asking too much? Well, yes — if you continue to host only two trains and about 300 people a day, as Amtrak does now.
Yet a new terminal linked to the region’s other public transportation stands a greater chance of attracting new passengers and expanded service than the Brookwood station on Peachtree Street in Buckhead, a pocket-sized whistlestop that opened in 1918 for the Southern Railway.
While Amtrak’s Atlanta service is modest, it has a better national story to tell: A record 30 million riders in the past year, and a 37 percent increase in ridership since 2000. It also operated at more than a $1 billion deficit in 2010.
A new terminal is a priority for Amtrak in Atlanta.
“There certainly is a sense of urgency within my department,” Jeff Mann, Amtrak’s assistant vice president for policy and development for the Southern region, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “A new station would allow us to pursue growth opportunities in Atlanta as far as regional service, a new corridor and connecting with MARTA services that we may not be able to access at the [current terminal].”
Operations are limited at the current terminal. Norfolk Southern’s main line shuts down while Amtrak trains are in the station; there isn’t room for Amtrak to pull off the main tracks during boarding. (Norfolk Southern also favors relocating the Amtrak terminal; alas, it can’t offer financial help.)
Amtrak is conducting a feasibility study and should have a preferred site for a new terminal early next year. Then the real work begins to secure funding, environmental approval and new agreements with other rail users and owners.
Earlier this year, the Georgia Department of Transportation was turned down for a grant to help develop an Amtrak-oriented project at Atlantic Station costing an estimated $38 million. The sate DOT would have contributed 6.5 acres of land valued at $8 million it owns near Ikea and the corner of 17th Street and Northside Drive. The Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak would have funded the rest.
A bigger investment in Amtrak is a waste, some will say. Yet some of Atlanta’s regional competitors already are riding the new terminal train: Amtrak is planning to move to the new multimodal Miami Central Station in 2013. And, Mann says, plans for a new Charlotte station are “progressing quickly.” Raleigh and Jacksonville are also in advance planning for new facilities.
So where does that leave Atlanta?
About the Author
