Hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure - Congressional Vision for a 21st Century Union Station: New Intermodal Uses and a New Union Station

Statement

Hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure - Congressional Vision for a 21st Century Union Station: New Intermodal Uses and a New Union Station

Statement
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Congressional Vision for a 21st Century Union Station: New Intermodal Uses and a New Union Station

I welcome today's witnesses to our oversight hearing on the Union Station complex and the actions taken since our last hearing to carry out the Congressional vision and mandate that Union Station become one of the nation's most important state-of-the-art intermodal transportation centers for all modes of transportation, maximizing the available space, including the planned multi-use addition, a result of the congressional competition that awarded the air rights over the rail tracks behind Union Station.

Designed by Daniel Burnham, for whom the new development, Burnham Place, is to be named, Union Station first opened in 1907 as a train facility for the nation's capital with a grand design commissioned by Congress that produced its landmark building. However, as rail use declined in the 1950s, the station rapidly deteriorated, and a series of failed ideas, wasted federal funds, cost overruns, major utility needs, mismanagement and litigation resulted. In 1981, Congress passed the Union Station Redevelopment Act (P.L. 97-125), which authorized the Secretary of Transportation to create the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC), a non-profit corporation, which later spearheaded the redevelopment of Union Station. In 1988, after a $180 million renovation, Union Station, which had become a neglected, boarded up wasteland, hardly fit for trains, reopened as a fully and historically restored beautiful facility and shopping mall. Thus was a 20th century Union Station reborn, but Congress wanted much more and mandated that Union Station become a model all-purpose transportation center. To continue to maximize the value of the historic station, in 2002, the General Services Administration, at the direction of Congress, bid and later sold the 15 acres of air rights above the adjacent Union Station rail yard. As a result of that sale a new development adjacent to Union Station, Burnham Station, is expected to bring an additional 2 million square feet of development, including a hotel, office space and expanded transportation capabilities and the like.

By statute, ownership of Union Station, as the Union Station Redevelopment Act report reiterated, remained with the Federal Government. However, we were unable to find evidence of congressional oversight of Union Station since its redevelopment. This subcommittee resolved to fill this unfortunate hiatus in much needed oversight, including hearing testimony and complaints from the public, at our first hearing exactly a year ago on July 22, 2008. The hearing today is a continuation of what will be regular oversight hearings, sometimes more often than annually.

Even after the hearing last year, the full committee and subcommittee has had to press Union Station management even to provide basic intercity bus transportation. Instead, intercity bus service continued to bang at the door of Union Station. Even a bus company seeking to sub-lease unused spaces was turned away for unjustifiable reasons. On March 20, 2008, with the leadership of this Committee, I wrote a letter asking for the co-location of an intercity bus terminal to Union Station to further enable passengers to seamlessly move from one mode of transportation to another. Considering the public/private investment in Union Station, and its intermodal center mandate, it seemed indefensible that the addition of bus transportation had not occurred long ago. However, the subcommittee and committee leadership had to write again to Union Station management, on May 7, 2009, urging expeditious handling of the relocation of Greyhound into Union Station. No world class intermodal facility would operate without intercity bus services included in its package of transportation services. We want to learn today whether aggressive and expeditious action has been taken to bring intercity services to Union Station.

We are determined to speed the slow walk of Union Station toward true intermodalism. Today, Union Station offers Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) rail and bus, the Virginia Rail Express (VRE), the Maryland Area Rail Commuter (MARC) line, a bicycle sharing program, and tourist friendly transportation services. Union Station is already the busiest rail stop on the WMATA rail line with over 30,000 daily visitors. However, the facility covers 12 acres, has 2,200 parking spaces, and 125 stores, and the new Intermodal Center will require new parking facilities for buses, new rail concourses, and additional homeland security improvements. The District of Columbia is currently completing a state of the art bike facility and is assisting in improving the traffic circle and taxi access. VRE is planning to extend its service to New York City, while at the same time MARC is extending to Fredericksburg and other Virginia locations. Amtrak will operate many of these new routes but major renovation at the facility will be required to do so and necessary to bring Union Station into this 21st century vision.

We look forward to a status report on Union Station from the full array of the responsible parties and thank them each for today's testimony.

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