ATLANTA — The Atlanta Regional Commission and the city of Atlanta are funding a study to determine a site for a new Amtrak station in the city.
“Relocating and modernizing the Atlanta Amtrak Station could create opportunities to improve customer service, ADA accessibility, and multimodal connections for rail travelers,” the ARC says in an online introduction to information about the study. “The relocated station would also serve as a signature local destination and gateway to the city for visitors while providing scalability for longer term service improvements between Atlanta and other cities.”
The commission is providing $500,000 toward the $625,000 study, with the city contributing the remainder, according to the Saporta Report news site. Engineering consultants WSP are leading the study, with Sycamore Consulting overseeing public outreach. A community survey currently in progress is slated to be completed in October, after which a stakeholder meeting will assess sites, with a draft recommendation due this fall. A public meeting on that recommendation is planned for December.
Amtrak requested $30 million for a new Atlanta station as part of its budget request for fiscal 2025, which would be sued for property acquisition for a project that could ultimately cost up to $700 million, the website Urbanize Atlanta reported last year.
Atlanta’s current Peachtree Station is about 3.5 miles north of downtown in the Brookwood Hills neighborhood. The small structure, built for the Southern Railway in 1918 as a secondary stop for the city, has limited space for passengers, a lack of parking, and poses accessibility challenges to reach its single platform on a lower level.
Consultants and “studies” should be skipped, replaced with intelligence and common sense. With Atlanta poised to become the hub of intercity passenger trains again, the new station should be located downtown.
Many cities had stub stations requiring reverse moves for trains to access platforms and concourses. Houston, Memphis, Chattanooga (hosting mostly through trains), St Louis, New Orleans (at least until recently), and Denver. Reverse moves prevent diesel fumes from entering the station when trains are parked. Locomotives can immediately be uncoupled from the train for servicing or replacement. Passengers are closer between train and station concourse without passing the locomotives and headend cars.
This may be a case for Brightline or some equivalent rail-oriented developer to spearhead a station as part of an overall private development project. At least it will stand a chance to being built on time and hopefully within budget.
The site across Forsyth Street from Five Points MARTA station seems to be the most logical…
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
I grew up in Atlanta and they have studied this to death. Starting a decade after they applauded tearing down Terminal and Union stations. The consultants make yet more money over the same blether. While NS would like to get the current station off their mainline, if the powers that tax have to have a ‘new’ station, then there is an existing spur into Atlantic Station south of Peachtree Station, site of a mixed use redevelopment of the old steel mill that would make more sense. At one time the redeveloper of the mill had ‘held’ out some space but it went nowhere.
Trains could also mention the other consulted to death fantasy of rail service ATL to Savannah which has been ‘studied and consulted’ to death ever since they took the Nancy Hanks off in 71. That latest ‘study’ has the route wandering all over mid GA including my town of Dublin. They want your vote on the route.
Studies, studies, studies …. Paid for by politicians who seem to have no idea what makes a successful train and what ends up a flop. Meanwhile the consultants get paid and whole forests are chopped down to publish the studies.
I’ve never ridden it but from what I have read on these pages, the Crescent is Amtrak’s sore thumb that won’t get better. Those of us who were around in the 1970’s reading Trains Magazine remember SR’s fleet of non-Amtrak trains being discontinued one by one, until only the Crescent was finally conveyed to Amtrak.
The bigger joke was that as much pride as SR’s distinguished President W. Graham Claytor had in the Crescent and how demanding he was to run an excellent train, that and his later excellent service as Amtrak president were only two parts of the story. The third (and earliest) part of the story was when he was SR’s head lawyer. It was Mr. Claytor in SR’s legal department who downgraded and discontinued SR’s secondary passenger routes. By means fair (occasionally) or foul (usually).
Nothing against Mr. Claytor personally. We all act under orders from above. A great man, a fine president of two railroads, a passenger train advocate (except as above), and a World War II hero.
Does the station need to be downtown? If my math is correct, sprawling New York City has exactly one Amtrak station, which by definition can’t be everywhere. Detroit’s Amtrak station is in the New Center. Before that, it was in Corktown. Baltimore Penn Station isn’t downtown, nor is Philadelphia’s Amtrak Station. The nearest Amtrak stations to San Franscisco are different counties.
Forgive me for another point. Atlanta Hartsfield Airport isn’t downtown and seems to be doing pretty well. Better than Amtrak.
Olé to the massive and well-organized ATL!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
In the past Amtrak has declined plans for a downtown station combined with MARTA and other transportation. The NS mainline turns west toward Birmingham just past the current station at the wye passing former Howell Tower (Sou Rwy, SAL, NC&StL all came through Howell Tower interlocking). Amtrak would have to make a long reverse move to reach downtown, which they don’t want to do. Back in the day, both Sou Rwy and SAL made the reverse move.
Bill Delmar