Grand Ambitions for $7 Billion Investment in Washington D.C.'s Union Station

The Washington Post provides all the details, renderings, history, commentary, and more that one could want about Amtrak's proposed $7 billion investment in Daniel Burnham's historic Union Station.

1 minute read

September 20, 2014, 1:00 PM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


According to Steven Pearlstein, "the proposed expansion and redevelopment of Union Station, which could do for Washington what Grand Central Terminal did for New York a century ago — create a new commercial epicenter for the city and provide the transportation anchor for a regional economy, stretching from Richmond to Baltimore."

Amtrak announced the plans back in July 2012. In total, the public and private investment proposed reach $10 billion, which Pearlstein says "would represent the region’s most important development initiative since the construction of Metro’s subway system."

The article is a massive, graphic- and visual-laden feature, and should be considered mandatory reading for anyone interested in transit infrastructure and transit oriented development—or, for that matter, Daniel Burnham's Beaux Arts building as it exists today.

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