Long-awaited Amtrak station opens in Rochester
Steve Orr
A gleaming new Amtrak passenger rail station, the fruit of more than 15 years of planning and debate, opened at mid-day Friday in downtown Rochester.
The new station is on the same site as the old one, on Central Avenue at the northern edge of downtown.
"We finally got it, didn't we?" U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter proclaimed jubilantly at an opening-day ceremony. The Fairport Democrat has been an aggressive, persistent proponent of the new station.
The new station opened more or less on schedule but considerably over budget.
Visitors will find the new Amtrak station, with its high ceilings, rounded skylights and huge arched windows, much more stylish and airy than its decrepit predecessor. There is space, as yet unfilled, for small retailers.
The new facility is 9,500 square feet, officials said — about 32 percent larger than the old one.
New seating appears comfortable and is equipped with electrical outlets for phone and laptop recharging.
The biggest difference in the new station, though, is the way in which passengers will get on and off their trains.
Instead of walking out the station’s back door and climbing portable steps onto the train, passengers will descend to a tunnel that extends to the middle of the tracks, then ascend to a boarding platform that is flush with the rail cars' doors.
No longer will passengers have to clamber up steps or have their wheelchairs hoisted aboard by hand. A broad stairway, an elevator and an escalator connect the tunnel to the waiting area and boarding platform.
The new method of boarding and debarking is fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, officials said.
"This is part of the economic transformation of Rochester," said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who added jocularly that he had a special affinity for the facility because it has "an Italian flair to it."
The new station and related work on tracks and sidings, funding largely by federal and state grants, was budgeted to cost $29.8 million.
But the final cost was $44.3 million, state officials said Friday. There was no explanation for the 49-percent cost overrun, which was covered by the state.
The facility was designed and built by a consortium led by the Pike Company of Rochester.
New rail station on track to be done next summer
The old Amtrak station was opened in 1978 and meant to be just a temporary facility. By the time it was torn down to make way for the new station, it was drab, dirty and outdated.
Eight Amtrak trains serve Rochester daily, four in each direction.
One train provides connections to Cleveland, Toledo and Chicago to the west and another to Boston and New York City to the east.
The other six carry passengers across upstate New York, with stops in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, Utica and Albany. One of them continues on to Niagara Falls and Toronto, and there are connections to other Amtrak trains in Albany.
The opening of Rochester's new station comes at a bit of a precarious time for passenger rail in the United States.
President Donald Trump’s proposed 2017-18 budget called for demolishing Amtrak’s national rail network by eliminating funding for most inter-state trains, including the historic Lake Shore Limited, which passes through Rochester each day as it travels between New York City and Chicago.
Amtrak's long-distance train routes could get the ax
The exception would be the higher-speed trains on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, the only significant Amtrak route that turns a profit.
Slaughter said Republicans in the House of Representatives approved that budget Thursday, though she does not believe the Senate will approve it as proposed. Funding for Amtrak's inter-state trains remains intact for now under continuing resolutions that extend the budget, she said.
New York state subsidizes the other trains that carry passengers within the state.
Nationwide, Amtrak enjoyed steady ridership increases through 2013, when a record 31.6 million people utilized its trains. The 2016 ridership figure was 31.3 million.
Ridership in and out of Rochester, however, has declined noticeably, perhaps because construction deters some potential passengers.
The number of passengers using trains here hit a modern-day peak of 141,200 passengers in 2012 but has declined every year since then. The total for 2016 was 123,400, a drop of 13 percent compared to 2012.
On-time performance continues to be an issue for Amtrak trains here, as elsewhere on their system. The trains that serve upstate New York have been late 15 to 30 percent of the time over the last year, according to Amtrak statistics, but the Lake Shore Limited has a much worse record.
The westbound Lake Shore has been late nearly 70 percent of the time. The eastbound's arrived behind schedule about 40 percent of the time.
A push during the Obama administration for high-speed trains that would run on dedicated rights-of-way, not tracks they share with freight railroads, fell flat in New York and many other states.
Slaughter chided Cuomo Friday, noting that a coal-fired passenger train set a speed record of 112.5 mph on tracks near Batavia in 1893.
"You see, governor, we had high-speed rail here, and we're ready for it again," she said.
Slaughter noted Friday, though, that federal rail funds made available by former President Obama were used for improvements on the existing rail network in New York, including elimination of a notorious bottleneck west of Albany that often caused Amtrak trains to run late.