Federal Railroad Administration Judges Ann Arbor Multi-Modal Train Station Plan Out of Touch With Reality

by P.D. Lesko

On August 11, 2021, in a letter to City Administrator Tom Crawford, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) said of the proposed plan to build a $171,410,000 “train station,” the feds have no intention of “continuing the development of the EA (environmental assessment) and do not intend to complete the environmental process at this time.” The plan to build a Fuller Road train station aka the Multimodal Station is dead as far as the U.S. Department of Transportation is concerned. If Ann Arbor officials want to see their plan through, Ann Arbor taxpayers will have to foot the bill for what FRA officials pointed out is, in essence, a parking garage.

The letter to former City Administrator Tom Crawford from the FRA stated:

“As FRA previously informed the City, the cost estimate for the City’s preferred project is an order of magnitude higher than other new intercity passenger rail and multimodal stations for which MDOT was awarded Federal funding by FRA to construct. The cost is high because the City’s preferred location for the station is constrained and the City is proposing a substantial amount of parking, requiring the station to be located over the tracks. In addition, the City’s preferred station design exceeds intercity passenger rail needs.”

In 2006, former Mayor John Hieftje was hawking his idea for a train station far and wide. For over a decade, he pitched the public on the project with the promise that it would be federally-funded by the FRA, who would pay for the bulk of the project. Hieftje told Michigan Radio in 2012 that intercity train “ridership could double or triple has been the experience of AmTrak so we’re trying to be ready for that.” By 2019, ridership at the Ann Arbor train station had not doubled or tripled; it had risen 13 percent. In 2012, Council accepted a $3.5 million grant from MDOT and promptly hired a “a private group to research development of a new station.” According to Hieftje’s plan, in its “first phase,” the “train station” would have been a 1,185 car parking garage. The University of Michigan was slated to take the bulk of the public parking for its own use in exchange for a nominal annual payment to the City.

In May 2010, when members of the Parks Advisory Commission were preparing to discuss a Council resolution to stop the project, Hiefje showed up at the PAC meeting urging “unity on the $47 million Fuller Road Station.” In 2012, Hieftje outlined his plan to AnnArbor.com: “Ann Arbor’s station could cost about $30 million. And in that hypothetical scenario, $24 million would come from the Federal Railroad Administration.” As late as 2018, the City’s Transportation Manager Eli Cooper told Council and the public that, “an 80/20 funding split may still be possible,” with the FRA footing 80 percent of the costs of the project.

In 2017, Hieftje Council protégé Christopher Taylor, elected mayor, cited “estimates” that Amtrak ridership through Ann Arbor “could increase from roughly 150,000 trips per year to more than 1 million per year by 2030.” In 2018, then Council member Jane Lumm (I-Ward 2) called the ridership projections, “overly optimistic” and said “they don’t pass the sanity check.” The August 11, 2021 FRA letter to Crawford shows that, in retrospect, Lumm was right.

By 2019, the estimated cost of what was, in essence, a parking garage, had ballooned to $171,410,000, with approximately 71 percent of the $171,410,000 costs dedicated to parking. Taylor told MLive: “First off, with respect to the price tag, I think it’s important to consistently observe that that’s the total project cost. That’s not a city cost. It’s anticipated that the federal government would pay 80 percent of that and that the balance would be matched by local partners, including, of course, the city.”

The evaluation done by the U.S. Department of Transportation showed the environmental concerns raised by residents were, indeed, valid. In 2015, the year after Taylor was elected mayor, and after residents began raising those environmental concerns with FRA officials related to the plan to build a large parking garage next to the Huron River, on parkland, City officials stopped sharing reports related to the project with the public, and stopped soliciting public input. In response, residents filed Freedom of Information Act requests. They were given communications between the FRA and City officials about the plan with entire pages blacked out. A 2016 Council resolution to release the FRA’s responses to the City’s plan was voted down 6-5, with Taylor claiming that release of the public records could “damage” the City and the FRA.

The FRA’s letter illustrates why Taylor and city officials thought the communications may have been damaging.

While Taylor told the public he was not wedded to constructing a new “train station” on Fuller Road parkland, the August 11, 2021 FRA letter states, “The cost is high because the City’s preferred location for the station is constrained.” While city staff, Taylor and others on City Council framed the project as a “train station,” FRA officials were not convinced. The FRA Director, Office of Infrastructure Investment Jamie Rennert wrote in his letter to Crawford, “The City is proposing a substantial amount of parking, requiring the station to be located over the tracks.”

Finally, the FRA saw through the unsubstantiated claims of both Hieftje, Taylor and their Council allies that Ann Arbor’s “train station” plan would meet the inevitable rising intercity ridership, as high as one million commuters by 2030, according to Taylor. Jamie Rennert was clear: “In addition, the City’s preferred station design exceeds intercity passenger rail needs.”

For 15 years, the public was gaslighted. Then, public records were withheld from them. Members of City Council and members of the public who questioned the plan were vilified as “anti-transit.” After years of spending millions of taxpayer dollars on consultants, designs, studies, planning work, and staff time, the U.S. Department of Transportation FRA officials have concluded Ann Arbor’s Director of Transportation and elected leadership are clearly out of touch with reality and the facts of what the future of train travel will be in Ann Arbor.

In 2018, then Council member Jane Lumm said at a public meeting about the money being spent on the “train station” plan, “It’s time to stop throwing good money after bad, time to cut our losses and time to apologize to Ann Arbor taxpayers for this colossal, monumental waste of taxpayer money.”

While Hieftje and Taylor were trying to sell Ann Arbor voters (and the FRA) an overblown fantasy, in August 2011, it was announced that the Federal Railroad Administration had released $28.2 million in funds for the construction of a new intermodal station to replace the current train station in Dearborn; the new facility would serve both intercity and commuter rail and include a new entrance to The Henry Ford museum complex adjacent to it. Dearborn’s new 16,000 square foot station opened in 2014.