House Representative Louise Slaughter says that construction on a new city Amtrak station will start in August. The intermodal station will also house Greyhound/Trailways, which currently operates south of the station.
- Provided photo
- A rendering of the planned city train station’s exterior.
Slaughter gave an update on the project’s progress to the media this afternoon. Construction is expected to cost $23 million — the full cost with preliminary and planning work is $27 million — and the project is fully funded. It’s received $18.5 million in federal transportation grants, $7.5 million in state funding, and $500,000 from the city, according to a fact sheet from Slaughter’s office.
The fact sheet says that construction should be completed in 2016. Aesthetically, the new station is modeled after the old Claude Bragdon-designed building, Slaughter said. The station will comply with Americans With Disabilities Act requirements, and the plans also call for a greater focus on parking lot security. The current station was built in 1970 and was supposed to be temporary.
“It’s going to be a nice gateway into the city,” Slaughter said of the new facility.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2013.
Sorry, but, although I love getting any money for projects, it is hard to celebrate this one! The truth is that Rep. Slaughter killed Ren Sq and this is the substitute. Rather than a PAC, MCC new campus and transit terminal in the middle of downtown, we get a train station and Greyhound bus station that few will use. Instead of downtown renovation, we get the project that will have no positive economic impact…all to satisfy the ego of someone that has ignored the calling of the House to REPRESENT and distorted it to instead, DICTATE! It is the House of Representatives, not House of Lords! So, lets celebrate the 27 million at the cost of the 240 million lost…not!
Almost 145,000 passengers used the current Amtrak station in Rochester last year alone. Turn off Angry Man News and get your facts straight before you comment.
@ Clint – I agree w/ you regarding the PAC, but otherwise I’d say things worked out rather swimmingly (save for not being able to demolish the atrocious buildings @ Main & Clinton)… We’re still getting a transit terminal; MCC is moving to a location where it will be able to realize it’s full potential while filling currently unused space and giving new life to the High Falls neighborhood; And a permanent train station is LONG overdue given the shortsightedness of razing the old station. It will spruce up an area that could certainly use it, perhaps paving the way for new investment.
I work for Amtrak in Philadelphia but am not writing as a representative of Amtrak. I love reading about Amtrak in various communities around the country and appreciate the comments of my fellow readers. My request to this news publication is that folks make some effort to tell me, the casual Internet reader, WHERE YOU ARE! Yes, I did run across it eventually. Hello Rochester! Glad you’re getting a new station. Public works projects are woefully overdue almost everywhere.
What next — a big fat taxpayer boondoggle to maintain all those horses and buggies? Or subsidizing a new pony express?
Clint, you may disagree with what Slaughter has done in Congress, but anyone who has been elected to the House FOURTEEN times can hardly be accused of not representing the majority of voters in her district.
As to her dictating whatever it is that she’s dictated, you’d better elaborate. Last time I looked there were multiple levels of government and she represents just one of them in a small corner of the state.
MJN,
Interesting response! So, lets go back to the assumption of the framers. The members of the House were supposed to to Washington for two years and represent their district’s interests. They, it was feared, would be subject to populism so, a more deliberative body, the Senate was to go there for 8 years to temper their populism. Representative Slaughter, to be sure, has been elected over and over…therein lies the problem! She killed Ren Square because of a dispute with RGRTA and, because she wanted an intermodel facility.
My point is this, that the County, City, and transit authority wanted Ren Sq. The REPRESENTATIVE was charged with the responsibility of enabling the project at the instruction of the local government, not, killing it because of her ideas!
The Representative has voted time and again with her party and against the interests of the district. Trade policy helped kill Kodak, and she voted for it. But, back to the issue at hand…the corner of Main and Clinton. Bill Johnson has said that that was the problem that was essential to the redevelopment of downtown…Maggie Brooks agreed! Louise killed it and the 243 million that went with it.
So, Senator Schumer, a member of the Senate, the body charged with balance and legislating, got the money, and she sent it away. It is hard to celebrate the 10 cents on the dollar that instead will be used to build a train station that no local official asked for except the Member! I hope this answers your question!
I hit the wrong key when writing …term of office of senate is 6 years! Should not write in the dark..LOL
Clint – Slaughter aside, if we want to talk about what the Framers had in mind the answer is a VERY restricted democracy. They created an executive that was elected for 4 years, not by the people, but by a group of electors appointed by states. They created a senate comprised of members serving for 6 years, again elected by the states not the people. They created a federal judiciary comprise of individuals nominated by the executive to serve for life and confirmed by the senate. Again, participation by the people was zilch.
The only involvement in the national government by those white males who were permitted to vote was the election of a House of Representatives who served for a mere 2 years.
That you view voters repeatedly electing who they wish to a public office as a “problem” is telling indeed. As telling as are the views of those who believe that democracy is better served by term limits than by continuing to permit the voters to exercise their elective franchise as they see fit.
Your disagreement with Slaughter’s decisions is well established. That those decisions were “against the interests of the district.” is of course merely your opinion. As is your belief that she and she alone wields semi-divine power to control the fiscal floodgates of federal largess.
I suggest it boils down to this. In your opinion, as in the opinion of many others, democracy only works when your party’s candidates get elected.