CHICAGO — Two architectural design companies and Amtrak are soliciting input from people who frequent Chicago Union Station before embarking on a renovation project at the busy facility.
The outreach is part of a process to determine the latest round of improvements being funded in part by a recent Federal-State Partnership grant [see “Chicago Union Station to receive more than $93 million …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 6, 2023].
The Chicago-based Epstein firm, in partnership with New York’s FX Collaborative, is attempting survey outreach with posters placed around the station that contain a QR code which travelers can access via smartphones. The rather extensive survey is also available here and requires about 10 minutes to complete.
It categorizes participants by home zip code, age, and sex, whether they are an Amtrak intercity rider or Metra commuter; frequency of visits,; and how they get to the station. Trains News Wire found it to be comprehensive in touching on aspects of current station operations that need examination.
The station is approaching its 100th anniversary in 2025. Originally owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Milwaukee Road, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (Gulf, Mobile and Ohio was a tenant), Union Station’s airy concourse was reduced to a basement beneath an office high-rise before Amtrak took over in 1971. Since then, the company has attempted to rework available space within the pillar-laden confines. The most recent renovation in 1990 created an exit corridor for intercity passengers between boarding lounges and gates.
Since then, Amtrak has made incremental improvements. Among them: relocating the first-class Metropolitan Lounge to a previously unoccupied area. It recently transformed the old Metropolitan space to an ancillary boarding lounge while removing seating from the always-congested main south boarding area. Amtrak passengers departing on most south concourse service (all trains except the Hiawatha Corridor and Empire Builder) are escorted from the Great Hall, which had been left untouched by the 1970 wrecking ball.
Paths for Metra commuters, however, typically congeal during every morning and evening rush hour, especially for those taking BNSF Railway trains to Aurora, Ill., out of the south boarding area. If there is a service disruption, stranded passengers caught in the cramped corridors have nowhere to go. The survey acknowledged most of these current shortcomings and asked for opinions on possible solutions. About 91% of the nearly 36 million passengers who transited the station in 2019 were Metra riders.
