Detroit station is an intermodal transit station in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. Located in New Center, the facility currently serves

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

and QLine streetcars. It also serves as a stop for

Greyhound Lines Greyhound Lines, Inc. is an American operator of Intercity bus service, intercity bus services. Greyhound operates the largest intercity bus network in the United States, and also operates charter and Amtrak Thruway services, as well as interci ...

, Detroit Department of Transportation buses,

SMART ''SMart'' was a British CBBC television programme based on art, which began in 1994 and ended in 2009. The programme was recorded at BBC Television Centre in London. Previously it had been recorded in Studio A at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingha ...

and buses. Baltimore Street station, in the median of

Woodward Avenue A woodward is a Game warden, warden of a wood. Woodward may also refer to: Places ;United States * Woodward, Iowa * Woodward, Oklahoma * Woodward, Pennsylvania, a census-designated place * Woodward Avenue, a street in Tallahassee, Florida, which b ...

, serves streetcars to Midtown and

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. It is located at the southwest corner of Woodward and West Baltimore Avenues. Amtrak's ''

Wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

'' line serves an elevated platform at the main building.

History

Amtrak station

The

Michigan Department of Transportation The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is a constitutional government principal department of the US state of Michigan. The primary purpose of MDOT is to maintain the Michigan State Trunkline Highway System which includes all Interst ...

(MDOT) bought the 3.1

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

site of the station for $889,000 – which also includes land directly across the tracks – in 1994 from

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

. The station was built in 1994 as a replacement for the former Michigan Central Station, which closed in 1988. From the closure of that station in 1988 until the new stations opening in 1994, services used a platform on Rose Street close to the old station. The station consists of a one-story building which includes a waiting room, ticket office, and restrooms. The platform is accessible by a tower at the back of the building, which heads to the level of the elevated GTW Shore Line Subdivision railway.

QLine

The streetcar system, now known as QLine, opened for service on May 12, 2017, and service began for the Baltimore Street station the same day. The station is sponsored by Penske. It is heated and features security cameras and emergency phones. Passenger amenities include

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

and arrival signs.

Future

In the mid-2000s, MDOT began working with local and federal agencies to develop an intermodal transit center one block south of the current station bounded by the

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

North Yard Branch railway to the north, Woodward to the east, Amsterdam to the south, and Cass to the west. The project was intended to bring together the services of Amtrak, DDOT,

, M-1 Rail (later QLine) streetcars, and future proposed services including the Woodward Avenue BRT and Ann Arbor-Detroit regional rail. The first phase was completed in 2010 consisting of clearing the site and building a surface parking lot for the future station. MDOT announced in January 2016 that the department was also seeking to partner with developers to also include

mixed-use development Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

at the site.

References

External links