(rshsdepot) King Street Station (Seattle, WA)

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From today's Seattle Times.

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/

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Train Station in Seattle Set to Receive $17 Million Makeover

Aug. 11--King Street Station is about to receive some long-overdue
pampering.
Painted boards will be pried away from the windows so sunlight can shine in.
Marble walls, some held together by tape, will be patched. The dank
restrooms will be replaced. The waiting area will be enlarged by one-third.

"We really want to make it usable, clean, safe and secure for the public,"
said Ron Sheck, the project manager for the state Department of
Transportation (DOT), which will start the $17 million, 1 1/2-year project
next week. The classically influenced depot was built in 1906, designed by
the same architects who designed Grand Central Station in New York City.

"The station's operations were bound to the development of the town, much
like a heart pumping life, in the form of new residents and freight, into
the growing city," according to HistoryLink.org. "From the expansive drive
fronting King Street, horse-drawn carriages -- eventually replaced by motor
cars -- whisked newcomers away to local hotels and boarding houses."

Rail travel flourished through the wartime era, when crowds gathered around
the newsstand and sat in high-backed wooden pews beneath the chandeliers.

In 1962, temporary walls were built to create offices that are now abandoned
but continue to block the waiting room and balconies. Train ridership
declined, and the walls and the urine-scented entrances further deteriorated
until a world-class city found itself with a Third World station.

"Just make it look clean and nice," pleads frequent rail traveler Karen
Papin of Flagstaff, Ariz., who called it the worst station among a hundred
she has seen.

Lorenzo Lopez, bound for Oxnard, Calif., was the last rider to board
Amtrak's 10 a.m. Coast Starlight train on a recent Tuesday, pacing the
platform until his buddy Carlos Garza arrived at the last moment to hand off
a coffee and a dozen smokes.

With only vending machines in the waiting room, Garza rushed to a Tully's
down the street.

The remodeling will include utility hookups to allow a coffee cart or eatery
inside the terminal, an improvement Garza will welcome: "Coffee's what
Seattle's known for."

Another motivation to fix the place is an increase in Amtrak passengers from
340,000 in 1994 to 600,000 in 2002. In addition, thousands of Sounder
commuter-train riders ascend directly to Fourth Avenue South and skip the
terminal. The DOT also speculates that the decrepit building discourages
some train use.

The upcoming remodel could be the first phase of a more ambitious
renovation.

The proposed second phase, costing $135 million to $175 million, would
include restoration of the chipped, 45-foot ceiling (now veiled by a false
ceiling of tiles), building expansion, more tracks, and the reconstruction
of elevated streets surrounding the terminal.

The DOT has suggested including $67 million for the project in a proposed
three-county transportation package that could be on the fall 2004 ballot.
But the remaining money would have to be found elsewhere.

King Street Station was a sentimental favorite in The Seattle Times' recent
"You Build It" reader-participation exercise. More than half of those
responding said King Street improvements should be part of the three-county
regional package.

Time is running short to prepare the station for more traffic from a future
monorail stop, light rail in the nearby downtown transit tunnel, additional
Sounder trains and Amtrak runs.

In about eight years, King Street is expected to be the third-busiest
station in the Pacific states, after Los Angeles and San Jose.

"This is the last major train station on the West Coast to be redone," Sheck
said.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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