New Railway Station for Detroit to Be Near Michigan Central Station

It is a glorious day anytime anyone – especially an automobile company – announces an interest in passenger trains.

Such is the case at Michigan Central Station, which for 75 years (1913-88) was the main passenger train station in Detroit. At 13 stories, above two mezzanine levels, it was the tallest train station in the world upon completion. When the station closed, it fell into disrepair – until 2018, when it was purchased by the Ford Motor Co. and redeveloped for a mix of uses.

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Now, the now-named Michigan Central Innovation District, the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit have signed a memorandum of understanding to begin preliminary assessments of plans for “a new transportation hub that will be located within the 30-acre Michigan Central Innovation District, featuring a new passenger rail and intercity bus transit station,” according to the governor’s office. Funding for this phase is $10 million federal and $30 million state.

“For decades, Michigan Central Station was the gateway to Detroit, and we are excited to begin the work of re-establishing train service at a new multi-modal transit facility in the shadow of the station,” said Sam Krassenstein, chief of infrastructure for the City of Detroit. “Detroiters deserve a first-class facility for bus and train service and this agreement puts us on a path to make it happen.”

Please be aware that the multi-modal station being “located within the 30-acre Michigan Central Innovation District” and “in the shadow of the station” should be read as “not located in the Michigan Central building.”

The Michigan Central building is now busy with office and retail, including Ford Motor Co. offices. A hotel is being developed, along with an after-school club for the Boys & Girls Club. “What people know as the station is turning into more of a cultural hub,” Beth Kmetz, director of commercial development for Michigan Central, told the Daily Detroit podcast. “We’ve become a major events destination. We think that the actual nuts and bolts of a transit center might make sense just immediately adjacent to us, next door.”

Building a new train station on the grounds of Michigan Central, but not using the historic building itself, will come as a disappointment to many. Our view is this: The building sat disused for 30 years. Its derelict condition made it a popular subject for urban ruins photography, emblematic of the late-20^th Century decline of Detroit. If the Ford Motor Co. has rehabilitated and activated this building to the extent that there’s no longer room for a train station in it, good for them.

We then humbly urge designers of the new station to aim for reviews of their completed work that include the phrases “magnificent,” “grandeur,” “brilliance” and “architectural splendor.” The central transportation hub of a recovering industrial city such as Detroit deserves nothing less. Let arriving passengers know they have reached a destination.

But this station is about more than architecture. It’s about transportation. The station can be as plush as the lobby of a five-star hotel, but if there aren’t trains to take people where they want to go, when they want to go, it will fall short.

These are the train service goals Amtrak and the Michigan Department of Transportation should be working toward, to make this magnificent (we hope) new station hum with activity all day, every day:

• Hourly service between Detroit and Chicago.
• Hourly service between Detroit and Grand Rapids, with stops in Livonia, East Lansing and Lansing.
• Hourly service between Detroit and Cleveland.
• At least four round trips a day between Detroit and Traverse City, with stops at Royal Oak, Pontiac, Mount Pleasant and Cadillac.
• Commuter service – hourly or better – between Pontiac and Ann Arbor via Detroit, with stops at Troy, Royal Oak, the existing Detroit train station in the New Center neighborhood, the new Michigan Central station, Dearborn, Inkster or Wayne (to serve Detroit Metropolitan Airport), and Ypsilanti.

The announcement from the governor’s office envisions “extension of a Chicago-Detroit Amtrak Wolverine train to Windsor and Toronto.” The troubling word there is “a.” If transportation leaders and public officials in the U.S. and Canada have to lift heaven and earth to get passenger service running through the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel (built in 1910, now owned by CPKC Railway) and then from Windsor to Toronto, it has to be for more than one train a day. We believe there should be a dozen daily round trips – otherwise a market won’t develop, and the hundreds of millions invested to get the service running will never be amortized.

Kmetz said the station could be up and running by late 2028, which is optimistic but it’s good to have aggressive goals. The location is near downtown Detroit, in a location that’s seeing development. Detroit City FC is building a new soccer stadium nearby.

A train station – with stout passenger train service – is a catalyst for development. You can build a city around it.

Read the official press release