Union Station has been a city fixture for more than a century, but officials want to make sure it stays vibrant, relevant and functioning for another century.
That means relatively minor improvements, such as improving boilers, to the grander goals of constructing tiered parking and a new residential and retail development across the street. The goals are in conjunction with the formation of a comprehensive new transit plan for buses in Hartford, including the future busway between New Britain and Hartford, scheduled to be ready in 2012.
Although the wheels are in motion to create a mixed-used development at Union Station, it won’t happen overnight.
Transportation officials are looking at Union Station’s future development as part of a 10-year plan, one that would take millions of dollars in federal funding and cooperation from many different entities, like Amtrak, the city and the state Department of Transportation.
“We have to look at transit development like many other cities have,” said Vicki Shotland, executive director of the Greater Hartford Transit District. “We are downtown, and we’re in the entertainment district. It could mean tiered parking for more cars with retail and residential development, and I think that’s possible.”
Infrastructure Improvements
As with most projects, long-term changes start with a whimper, not a bang. Currently, the transit district has issued a request for qualifications for architectural and engineering services.
The first priority is to replace the station’s boilers, which were installed two decades ago and have outlived their usefulness. Shotland anticipates that the boiler project will begin in the spring.
Second on the Union Station’s project list is a review and improving the bus-loading area by replacing the concrete. However, rising labor costs could push that project back to the latter half of next year.
Shotland described those projects as “not that exciting” compared with the myriad possibilities that lay just over the horizon.
The Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG) has begun work on the Northwest Transit Corridor Study that will look at three components: the circulation of mass transit in the area, the Day Hill corridor in Windsor and the future of Union Station.
The impetus for the study is a need to define an identified loop for buses in the city and to accommodate possibly more buses with the inclusion of the New Britain busway, according to Sandy Fry, CRCOG’s principal transportation planner.
Study Underway
“The big reason [for the study] was that nobody determined what the best loop for buses is, and the work we’re doing here is, in part, to figure that out,” she said. “We want to improve the overall transit systems, and that feeds into Union Station and what are the best alternatives there.”
Fry estimated that the study could produce some alternatives by February, but that the study would likely take most of 2008 to complete. At this point, she said they are still in the data collection phase.
“With Union Station, we need to look at how the space is utilized, how much traffic there is and what the parking is like,” said Fry. “Once we have all that information, we can start looking at what we can do.”
Closer At Hand
More pressing for the transit district is how to manage the increasing number of passengers, buses and cars. The transit district, in addition to owning Union Station, owns the parking lot on Spruce Street, located across the street.
The traffic numbers are significant, as Shotland said the station has about 400,000 commuters per year.
“What do we want to do to help develop transit-orientated development?” Shotland asked. “We’re the biggest bus stop in the area, and we have to look at where we stand and how we’re going to fit in.”
Union Station itself is in good condition for one that was built in 1914, she said, adding, “It will be the last thing standing in 1,000 years.”