Capital Area Multi Modal Gateway

MichMatters

So, CATA has gotten around to formally announcing the start of construction for the new Capital Area Multi Modal Gateway i.e. the glorified Amtrak station. They've also made a rendering available to the public:


Capital Area Multi-modal Gateway by NewCityOne, on Flickr

This is way better than what's currently there, and better than the concept they released a few years back showing a brick building that looked like a Rite-Aid. lol The rendering shows the train station and part of the canopy for the inter-city bus stop to the left. Left out of the rendering is the bike storage building to the east of the station, and I believe that there is also a canopy for the CATA stop at this complex.

I'm really liking the modern feel, the glass and steel faced with what looks to be brushed aluminum. For being on a rather tight budget, I'm actually fairly impressed. The site plan - which has actually been available for some time - shows that the complex has the ability to expand to include another platform on the tracks on the south side of the complex. This could be used for potential regional rail to Detroit, or for the Coast-to-Coast service that the state of Michigan is currently studying, which would include train service stretching from West Michigan to Detroit.

david_shane

Gasp! I do prefer the classic train station feel to the modern feel - but it's also almost impossible for anyone to build something with a truly classic feel today (unless they are a Catholic architect, it seems!), so I will certainly take this over the current structure. I still fear they have unthinkingly eliminated the possibility of a climate-controlled waiting area during off-peak (unstaffed) hours, but you can't really tell from this rendering. At least there would clearly be a place to get out of the rain.

The current stop is terrible. It is the most used stop on the route outside of Chicago, and the current building does not speak to that fact at all.

MichMatters

Yeah, you need a lot of money to get good neo-classical design, these days. Short of having the money, if you're going to go modern, this is how you do it. And, this is rather classically modern with clean lines and uniformity rather than the deconstructivist bull architects through up these days. I do, however, share your concern, but I'm glad they at least had the thought in their head to add an overhang around the station.

BTW, along this particular line, Kalamazoo is far and away the most heavily used (mostly because it also serves the Wolverine). East Lansing is second. But, yeah, for the ridership this station gets, the current station has been nothing short of an embarrassment, to me. It's literally run out of a former MSU storage shed. I've seen stations that serve considerably fewer riders that are more grand than the our shed of a station.

hood

This is how you build a small station on small budget. With the old rendering, I was worrying they'd build something almost laughable but this looks very nice.

MichMatters

The LSJ has finally gotten around to covering this.


Rod Sanford | Lansing State Journal

You don't know how glad I am to see this picture. That shack that served as our station was an absolute embarrassment for such a busy station along the line. I hope that sometime off in the future as demand grows that we get a station further down the line in Lansing, too.

Architect: DLZ Architects
Constructor: Laux Construction

david_shane

Yeah, I know Lansing (and Lansing-sized cities) used to quite commonly have multiple train stations. However in the current climate, I think if both Lansing and East Lansing had an Amtrak stop they would be the two closest Amtrak stops in the country.

But, as I've said before, Lansing is an extremely bipolar city, in the original sense of the word. Greyhound express buses, which have as their main draw to stop as rarely as possible, still stop in both East Lansing and Lansing - nobody can figure out just where our main transit hub is!

MichMatters

Inter-city buses already stop at both the downtown station and the Amtrak station, and that's not even to mention services like the Michigan Flyer which stop in downtown EL. This isn't going to change within my lifetime. I think it's just the way the metro's functioned, and no one has ever had enough problem with that to try and change things.

Mrlansing

I have a silly story to point out why it is silly that downtown lansing is not a central depot for all public transportation services in the area. Point in case, I drive uber on weekends. I picked a lady up from Michigan flyer stop in EL Downtown where she got off the bus, only to find that her destination and home was downtown lansing at Stadium District. This should happen, Lansing should be the major transportation hub for all mediums of public trans. That includes Amtrak, CATA, BRT, GreyHound, and Michigan Flyer (DEAN). Every surrounding community should have transportation pipeline funneling to downtown. Students go to downtown station via BRT or CATA and the launch out of town from main hub downtown.

Jared

Huh, there actually was already a thread on this. Somehow we ended with two threads about the Capital Area Multi Modal Gateway. I'm closing this thread and moving discussions back to the original thread.