Mt. Pleasant benefits from Amtrak station renovations

Amtrak's planned upgrades at the Mt. Pleasant train station is benefitting the city of Mt. Pleasant.

City Building and Zoning Administrator Jack Swarm said that sidewalks that cross the tracks near the station are being upgraded as part of the project.

'When Amtrak sent us their plans for city review, we encouraged them to consider the public sidewalks as part of their project,” Swarm said. 'We were able to work together and come up with a really nice agreement on how to handle the public sidewalks that intersect with the platform.

'The bottom line result is that the public sidewalks are going to be much improved, largely by Amtrak.”

Amtrak is renovating the whole station for handicap accessibility, including the interior of the building, parking areas and the platform.

The platform stretches three city blocks and touches three street crossings: North Main, North Adams and North Lincoln streets.

'Those crossings are not handicap accessible,” Swarm said. 'There are a lot of slopes and bumps.”

Swarm said that the significance of the agreement with Amtrak, which was approved by the City Council in October, is the difficulty of getting permission to work in the railroad right of way, which is owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

'It's really difficult to work inside Burlington Northern's right of way,” Swarm said. 'It's hard to get permission, and permitting is really expensive.

'Having Amtrak do this while they already have permission to work in Burlington Northern's right of way is really good for the taxpayers of Mt. Pleasant. We'll be getting some really nice pedestrian crossing upgrades across the tracks.”

Swarm said that Amtrak is paying for nearly all the sidewalk work.

'Working with them is good because the city doesn't have to pay for any of those sidewalk upgrades,” Swarm said.

The city will pay $12,800 for a sidewalk that will run from the Lincoln Street right of way on the south side of the tracks to the edge of the Burlington Northern Railroad right of way.

'We worked with Amtrak, we proposed to them, ‘While you're working in the right of way, while you have Burlington Northern's permission to work here – which is very difficult to obtain – can we pay you to improve and fix this particular sidewalk,'” Swarm said. 'Amtrak shot us a very reasonable price, and we took it. It's a win-win for Amtrak and for us.”

Work on the project is expected to be completed in spring 2021.