Officials in Port Huron, Michigan, are at odds over what to do about the town’s Amtrak station. Some want a new station, but where to place it has triggered disagreements.
The current station is located in an out-of-the-way location in the southern part of town, is not lighted well and is easy to miss.
Other gripes include lack of adequate parking, no room for a bus turnaround or access to other travel options, and no nearby restaurants or overnight amenities.
However, there is wide disagreement about what to do about that, including whether to renovate the current depot or build a new station closer to freeways or downtown Port Huron.
And the City of Port Huron thinks that some government entities are conspiring to move the station outside the city.
For now, a $125,000 study is underway to evaluate the current station and potential locations for a new one.
The station is the eastern terminus of the Blue Water from Chicago, a service funded by the State of Michigan.
Heading the station study is the Blue Water Area Transit, which hired Bergmann Associates to do the study.
Dave McElroy, assistant general manager and finance director for BWAT, said resolving the station situation will take time and it will not be inexpensive. As for what is likely to happen, he is not sure.
“It just depends on what the study comes up with,” he said. “Where it is, what the community decides they’d really like to see.”
Talks about a new Port Huron station have been going since at least 2011.
Former Port Huron City Manager Bruce Brown spoke with Amtrak, the Michigan Department of Transportation and Canadian National Railroad about new station sites.
One was the Thomas Edison Depot Museum while the other was near the former Thomas Edison Inn property. But those proposals went nowhere.
Various the agencies got involved, including Port Huron Township.
After Amtrak said it had talked with the township about relocating its Port Huron station, Port Huron City Manager James Freed objected.
“I think they’re trying to move our train station outside the city without talking with our city residents, let alone those around that neighborhood,” he said.
Freed expressed similar sentiments during the first of two public hearings led by Bergmann Associations on Oct. 19.
Freed noted that property owned by CN was mentioned by station study project manager Jeremy Hedden in a presentation as a potential site candidate.
“My concern with the guy doing the study is he shows up, (says) that no decision has been made yet, that they want an open and fair conversation,” he said. “Yet, he starts the conversation off with several statements like this spot’s closer to the highway than this spot.”
The site in question is along Griswold Road between 24th Street and Michigan Road near Interstate 69.
Port Huron Township Supervisor Bob Lewandowski said that just because that site was at a hearing discussed doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee to be the location of a new station.
Lewandowski would like to see the township get the station. Some have argued that the station site selection process needs to take into account the greater needs of the region.
“For us right now, we’re advocating we would like to see it out here,” Lewandowski said. “We think we’ve got a better space to be able to provide more for a station as far as if we can’t get them to do the maintenance on the train here. (We could) have a few more jobs here. The space is there to have a platform to move (the train) to some sort of maintenance facility.”
Lewandowski said there’s also more space to accommodate other amenities for travelers — which could jump-start economic growth, such as a small hotel or restaurant nearby.
Freed is concerned about economic development as well, saying Port Huron uses its status as a city serviced by Amtrak “to the fullest of its capabilities” — both keeping the city a destination and making an transportation travel option available to a local population who needs it.
He said he thinks passenger rail is going to grow and that will bolster hotels and restaurants.
If the station were to remain in Port Huron, Freed said the current station on 16th Street could be upgraded, the original Grand Trunk Western station could be used or a new site could host a depot
Some have even advocated establishing a station in a location that would attract passengers from Sarnia, Ontario.
Mabel Higgins, vice president for Rail Advocacy in Lambton, said at the Oct. 19 hearing that a station in Port Huron Township would be accessible to Canadians coming by highway for travel to Chicago.
The station study underway is expected to be completed by February or March. The next step would be to conduct an environmental assessment of various station options.
In a best case scenario, construction on a new or renovated station is no closer than two years and it may be five years before completion.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said station renovations and replacements are almost always locally-driven projects.
He said Amtrak has many ongoing discussions with various communities, including Port Huron, about station renovation or replacement.
Magliari said transit agencies are often the “perfect group” to lead Amtrak station projects.
“They already have the transportation focus and willing people,” he said. “In some cases, it’s led by community groups who have an idea. That can work too. (Or it can be) a regional planning organization or council of governments.”
McElroy said BWAT expects to continue to lead the station project and that the two public hearing held thus far won’t be the public’s last opportunity to comment.
“Any input that Bergmann gets that is meaningful, there will be follow up, I’m sure,” McElroy said. “And like they tried to point out, if anything transpires from this study, there’s a lot more input that takes place. A lot more in depth, a lot more detail.”
Freed agreed that having BWAT take the lead makes sense. CN and MDOT are also expected to play a role in the process.
CN spokesman Patrick Waldron said he was familiar with discussion of a new station previously but wasn’t up to date if anything has resurfaced more recently.
Regional MDOT spokeswoman Jocelyn Hall said frequency, passenger boards, and community size are among the “many considerations when building a station.”
One of those is ridership history. MDOT said ridership at Port Huron rose from 13,162 in 2009 to 29,792 in 2013, a 125 percent plus increase.
However, Amtrak patronage has declined since then to 22,682 in 2015, 20,205 in 2016 and 15,850 through September of this year. The lowest ridership in the last decade was at 12,619 in 2007.
Another factor is where the money to pay for a new station will come.
“That’s a great question because funding for that has not been identified yet,” McElroy said. “The community, I’m sure we’ll go out and try to receive some federal and state grants. To be competitive, sometimes you have to throw in local money as well.”
Amtrak in the Heartland 