Nora Grace-Flood Photos
Mayor Justin Elicker and Connecticut Transportation Commissioner Joe Giulietti sign on to a vision of shorter train rides, new bathrooms, and shared management of state owned facilities.
Local, state, and federal leaders came together Tuesday to support, sign, and seal a 55-year deal to redevelop and modernize Union Station — and promised to pave the way for a bustling 2022 during a time of mass uncertainty.
In the midst of rising Covid cases and canceled holiday travel plans, Gov. Ned Lamont took his car to Union Station for the event Tuesday morning. He joined U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, State Sen. Martin Looney, State Rep. Roland Lemar, city Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitell, Park New Haven Chairman Norm Forrester, Connecticut Transportation Commissioner Joe Giulietti, and Mayor Justin Elicker to hail a lease agreement, decades in the making, containing detailed plans for the station’s future.
Specifically, Lamont signed a 35-year lease (with a 20-year extension) with New Haven that will uphold the city’s right to manage and operate Union and State Street Stations, which are both owned by the state. The terms of that agreement include the creation of 600 new parking spaces, the establishment of an “intermodal center” that will connect the train station to buses and other forms of transport, and more retail options within and around Union Station. (Read more about the plan in depth here.)
On Tuesday, politicians took the opportunity to speak to how a revamped Union Station could boost public transportation, up the connection between the city’s residents and the country at large, and spur economic growth and job creation.
The proposed agreement does not include any specific dollar amount committed by the city, state, or federal governments towards the funding of the substantial redevelopment envisioned for Union Station. The proposed improvements are largely contingent upon state bonding, federal grants, and private partnerships yet to be determined.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy: This agreement comes at the perfect time.
“This agreement comes at the perfect time,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. “Right when the federal government is making this massive, historic investment in more trains and faster travel.”
“It pays off to have the chair of the House Appropriations Committee from Connecticut,” he added, referencing U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Of the $66 billion allocated towards rail by the newly enacted federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Murphy pointed out that $30 billion is earmarked for the Northeast corridor.
That corridor “is only about 18 percent of the country’s population, but we’re getting nearly 50 percent of the money,” he said.
Alder Rodriguez: Cause for celebration.
We’re living in “troubled times,” Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez noted when it was her turn at the podium. It may feel like a gamble to invest in trains right as Omicron has taken off, but, Rodriguez said, “today is a day to celebrate.”
Many of the event’s speakers described the future remodeled Union Station competing with New York City’s Grand Central and Washington D.C.’s Union Station for most “magnificent” and historied rail station. Rodriguez pointed to the role the station should start to play in connecting neighborhoods like the Hill to the rest of the city and creating a more cohesive local community.
Rather than remaining an architectural outlier and continuing a legacy of developmental bifurcation, the station is now on track to become a central part of the city’s downtown, Rodriguez urged, through the now adopted 55-year road map. The Hill “is the center of my universe,” she said. Now, the neighborhood she represents may become more central to others’ universes.
Rodriguez said she reads the deal as a sign that 2022 “will be a great year.”
Gov. Lamont: Our government can do really big things.
The agreement also serves as a reminder that “Our government can work, our government can do really big things,” Lamont stated, as well as “how transformative resources can be.” Then he noted, “I don’t want to be a downer… We’ve got a 9 percent infection rate” of Covid-19 across the state.
Lamont urged everyone to get a booster shot. Vaccination, he said, is the best chance we have as a collective to move forward into a fresh and more closely interconnected future.
After nearly an hour of speeches (watch those in full here), the team sat down to seal the deal before taking a quick tour of the station and its surrounding property with Doug Hausladen, executive director of Park New Haven, which manages the train station.
Doug Hausladen: Bathrooms en route.
Hausladen described limitless possibilities still on the table to expand the station’s amenities through the new deal, but said there was one major request that has been repeatedly put forward by those who use the station: More bathrooms.
“Building back better” includes prioritizing more toilets, according to Hausladen. Once that’s accomplished, he asserted, everything else “will flow.”
Finally. Accomplishing what previous administrations could not.
I hope a nice plaza can be built in front of the station, like the one initially envisioned more than 100 years ago.