(The following story by Gil Smart appeared on the Lancaster online website on August 3.)
LANCASTER, Pa. — At 9 a.m. Friday morning, Don Davis had the door to his little wooden booth propped open so the air could circulate as he counted the morning take.
Business is always brisk here at the Lancaster Amtrak station’s long-term parking lot, but Fridays are a little mellower, said Davis, who works for PRK-Mor Inc., of Harrisburg, which manages the lot.
As if to illustrate, a car pulled in — and found a spot.
Little chance of that happening so late on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, said Davis. Then, the lot’s full by 7 a.m. And if there aren’t any metered spaces in front of the station, people are on their own.
“Some go park over by the [nearby Fulton] bank, but that’s a tow zone,” said Davis. So is the Station Square lot across the street.
“People get angry” when they’ve got a train ticket but not a parking space, Davis said. “But what can we do?”
Local officials are on the verge of “doing” something. The question is: Will it be enough?
By December, officials hope to break ground on a $12 million upgrade to the train station. As part of the long-awaited project, there will be a new bus terminal, new shops, air conditioning and an overall facelift. There will also be about 62 new parking spaces.
Virtually everyone involved with the project freely admits that’s not enough.
The problem, say officials, is money. It took years to cobble together the funding for the project; there just isn’t enough to acquire more space for more parking spaces.
Land might be available; one adjacent property owner has suggested he could be persuaded to sell. And some worry that a continued shortage of parking could undermine the tremendous surge in passengers on Amtrak’s Keystone Line, which runs through Lancaster. It could even threaten long-term growth of the neighborhood, officials said.
James Cowhey, executive director of the Lancaster County Planning Commission — the lead agency on the project — said he hopes more parking can be secured down the line. “We know we need more parking,” he said. “But it’s just not going to happen at this site right now.”
Gradual decline
Built in 1929, the Lancaster train station is an architectural gem. It’s gradual decline over the years seemed to parallel a declining interest in train travel.
The number of passengers riding the rails actually peaked in 1920, nearly a decade before the local station was completed. Despite a spike in ridership during World War II, and again during the oil embargo years of the 1970s, the number of passengers has steadily decreased.
Until now.
The high gas prices in recent years have led to a meteoric increase in the number of passengers riding Amtrak’s Keystone Line, said Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero. Between October 2007 and June 2008, ridership was up 19.1 percent over the same span a year earlier. In June, 20.3 percent more people rode the rails than in June 2007.
Cowhey said that an average of 1,000 people per day catch a train to or from the Lancaster station. “That’s the highest it’s been in recent times, in decades,” he said.
But there’s a downside to catching a train out of Lancaster. Tom Roche sees it every morning, long before the sun comes up.
“There are several of us that arrive at the Lancaster station before 4:45 a.m. … so that we can take advantage of the free parking along McGovern Avenue,” said Roche, who lives in Lancaster and catches the eastbound 5:35 a.m. train, heading for his job in Wayne. “Normally before 5 a.m., those 15 or 20 spots are gone.”
Michael Ball of Manheim Township, who works in Philadelphia, also says cost is an issue: “The $5 daily parking fee is ridiculous,” he said.
Davis, the parking attendant, said lots of people ask about monthly parking passes, which in the long run would cost less. But owner PRK-Mor doesn’t sell monthly passes because there’s simply too much demand for the limited parking.
Said Roche: “We are going to spend a lot of money to upgrade the station, [and] we need to take the next step and ensure there is parking capacity to meet the needs.”
Cowhey said it just isn’t that simple.
The upgrades have been in the talking/planning stages for nearly a decade. The cost of the project has risen by more than a third over that period, mostly due to inflation.
Now, finally, the money is in place: $9.6 million in federal funds, $2 million in state money and $400,000 in county funds.
But the way that money will be spent has generated some criticism. Local Internet news site NewsLanc.com, among others, has questioned whether the dedicated bus-loading area and other space reserved for the Trailways buses could be better used for more parking.
But Cowhey said the idea of a multi-modal transportation hub was a “driving consideration” in the redesign of the station. More people are traveling by bus or bike than at any time in recent years. The new station must accommodate them all.
Exacerbating the parking crunch is the fact that city and Manheim Township officials want to turn the entire corridor into a “Transit Revitalization Investment District.” The idea is to leverage public funding for improvements and lure developers.
But “there is no question that viable development in that neighborhood requires additional parking,” said Randy Patterson, the city’s director of economic development and neighborhood revitalization.
Patterson noted that there had been some talk of a parking garage somewhere along the corridor, but garages are a “loss leader,” costing $20,000 to $25,000 per space to build.
“Yes, there is a concern about the adequacy of parking” at the train station, said Patterson. “But the issue is always cost.”
Space could be available for more spaces. Jim Fogarty, owner of Lancaster Lincoln Mercury, just west of the station, said local officials approached him to talk about the project. But Fogarty was surprised by what wasn’t said: “No one has ever approached me to ask if I’d be willing to sell,” said Fogarty. “I guess they figured I’d be too expensive… but I’ve got all the parking they’re looking for.
“They’re spending $12 million to fix up [the station] and when it’s done they know there’s not going to be enough parking?” he asked. “Does that make any sense?”
Said Cowhey: “We know it isn’t the best situation.” But it took years to convince Amtrak to sign off on the final plan; “the federal dollars were there to do this kind of project.”
It may fall short of perfect, he said.
“But this may be our only shot.”