(rshsdepot) Lancaster, PA

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From today's Lancaster New Era.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Train station plan back on its rails? City  station rehab project is 
bedeviled by Amtrak’s phasing details, but local  officials say construction could 
start in 2008.


By Bernard Harris  
A decade after the initial study and four years after the project was  
launched, the estimated $10 million renovation and improvement of Lancaster  City’s 
Amtrak station appeared last month to be stuck and rusting to the rails.  
Now, officials said Tuesday, they believe the long-delayed project can move  
forward.  
“If we can get to bid late this year, construction can start in spring 2008,”
  said Christopher Neumann, Lancaster County’s former chief transportation 
planner  and now a consultant to the county.  
Plans call for increased parking, a separate waiting area for bus passengers, 
 shops, restaurants, new Amtrak offices, upgrades to the nearly 80-year-old  
station’s heating and air conditioning systems and realignment of the station  
driveway to meet North Duke Street.  
Neumann told members of the county’s Transportation Coordinating Committee at 
 their monthly meeting that he and Rich Esposito, Amtrak’s district manager, 
have  met to find a way around remaining obstacles.  
Another meeting, with Amtrak, state Transportation Department and county  
officials is slated for next week at the station.  
The meetings follow frustration voiced by transportation committee members  
last month and a subsequent letter sent to Amtrak that committed funding for 
the  project was in jeopardy.  
At TTAC’s December meeting, PennDOT Program Manager Terry Adams said a letter 
 to Amtrak attempting to iron out details in bid documents was met with a 
fresh  list of 17 conditions from the national passenger rail service.  
“It’s just gotten totally, totally out of hand,” Adams said.  
He noted that in the eight years the station improvement plans had been  
before the transportation officials, the cost has grown from $6 million to a  
projected $12 million.  
He blamed Amtrak for complicating the process, saying it would be the rail  
service that would be the ultimate beneficiary of the upgrades that it was not  
paying for.  
“We’re renovating and gold plating their station,” Adams said.  
Amtrak’s Esposito, who did not attend the December meeting, said Tuesday that 
 the frustration was taken back to as many Amtrak officials as possible.  
He told the committee that Amtrak’s concerns were with the details. The rail  
service has more than 100 employees based at the Lancaster station. Esposito  
said Amtrak officials were concerned that station operations would not be  
impeded during the renovations.  
Neumann said architect Cooper Carry, of Atlanta, had planned to leave the  
construction schedule to the contractors. Amtrak wanted some control in the  
phasing of the construction schedule in order to preserve its operations there,  
Neumann said.  
“Working out that phasing plan is critical,” Neumann said.  
If construction bids are secured late this year, Neumann said, the  
renovations could be complete in late 2009. 

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