http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....+Cityscapes%29
From: BLAIR KAMINS Blog
February 25, 2010
A high-speed rail station proposal from Helmut Jahn: Not perfect, but it gets the civic debate on the right track
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Chicago architect Helmut Jahn has a promising but imperfect plan for a high-speed rail station in Chicago. It’s not much more than a sketch, certainly not a finished blueprint. Yet it deserves to be taken seriously, if only because it should kick-start a much-needed debate over the right place for the hub of the Midwest’s just-funded high-speed rail network.
Jahn, who has long excelled at transportation facilities, has prepared the plan for Reuben Hedlund, a civic-minded zoning lawyer who headed the Chicago Plan Commission from 1991 to 1997. Hedlund does not appear to be in a position to profit from the project, which he calls the Daniel Burnham Central Station in honor of the great turn-of-the-century Chicago planner. So the proposal can be considered clean, even if it would likely send the values of nearby properties skyrocketing.
The plan calls for the demolition of a brick U.S. Postal Service building in the 300 block of West Harrison Street, which stands just southeast of the old Chicago Main Post Office astride the Congress Expressway, and is mainly used by carriers who deliver mail to the South and West Loop (below). In its place would rise a riverfront office or condo tower and a low-slung train concourse with a swooping roof that would reach out like a tail, sheltering tracks and train platforms below street-level (above).
Let’s set aside the biggest practical hurdle to this vision—whether the Postal Service would sell the building or join private developers in a partnership to rebuild the site.
Advocates expect high-speed rail to make its debut in Chicago by 2014, in the wake of President Barack Obama’s decision to award $8 billion to the concept nationwide. That means Chicago and Mayor Richard Daley have a choice: Are they going to get on board and create a railroad gateway worthy of the city--or are they going to let a golden opportunity pass, cramming new passengers into an already-jammed Union Station?
The stakes are enormous, and not just because high-speed rail is the signature public works initiative of Obama’s controversial economic stimulus package. The location and architectural character of the station will invariably influence whether people switch from planes, as well as energy-hogging vehicles, to this greener form of getting around. The station also could propel a new wave of downtown development once the recession ends. Yet there has been precious little leadership on this issue from City Hall.
Whatever explains the city’s recalcitrance, this much is clear: Union Station is a poor candidate to serve as a high-speed rail hub.
Despite the soaring image of its barrel-vaulted Great Hall, the passenger concourse east of the hall is confusing and confining, a warren trapped within the structural columns that hold up the office building above it. Going forward, Union Station lacks adequate space to marshal more passengers and handle more trains. Nor does it connect to the Chicago Transit Authority’s express service to O’Hare. Its fundamental problem, though, is that it isn’t really a station. It’s a terminal.
Almost all of Union Station’s tracks, whether northbound or southbound, stop at the station instead of running straight through. That’s no good if you’re a high-speed rail passenger traveling, say, from Milwaukee to Cincinnati. You’d have to change trains in Chicago. Who has time for that? You’d fly instead.
In contrast, Hedlund is touting his site as the best of both worlds: It offers access to the train tracks that emerge from Union Station’s south end without the station’s claustrophobic structural web...............................
more sketches in link
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