President Donald Trump is overhauling the train stations in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The Trump administration is taking over the management of Washington’s Union Station. The move comes amid the administration’s effort to clean up crime in American cities, starting with the nation’s capital.
“I think the president has been pretty clear on what he wants for Union Station, for American travel, for train travel,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said at a Wednesday press conference at Union Station. “He wants Union Station to be beautiful again. He wants transit to be safe again, and he wants our nation’s capital to be great again, and today is part of that.”
Duffy spoke with reporters on the inaugural NextGen Acela ride from Union Station to Penn Station in New York City. He told The Daily Signal that previous investments into Union Station haven’t been effective.
“And I think over the course of the last 20, 25 years, it is in great need of new dollars, new investments,” he said. “But the structure we have now isn’t actually working. Taking it back to [the Department of Transportation], and continuing to work with our partners, we’re going to allow the space to be beautified. More retailers are going to want to come in. It should be a space that you should go to.”
The revenue that will come in as a result of the Transportation Department taking control will allow the administration to make investments in improving Union Station, Duffy said.
“The president’s been very clear: He wants D.C. to be beautiful. It should,” the transportation chief told The Daily Signal. “We are the greatest country. This is the greatest capital, and it should look like the greatest capital. And I think one of the center points of our capital is Union Station.”
“We’ve taken the president’s directive to heart, and we are going to do our part to make Union Station a place that every American can be proud of and should want to visit,” the congressman-turned Fox News personality-turned transportation secretary continued.
Because Amtrak is a rail company, “it’s not really adept at managing leases and property and maximizing the value for the property,” Deputy Transportation Secretary Steve Bradbury told The Daily Signal.
“What we’re going to do is, we’re going to come in and work with Amtrak and Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC) to negotiate a new cooperative agreement among the three parties that will ensure that we take control. USRC will be our agent,” Bradbury said. “They’ll contract with the property manager, and will ensure maximizing the revenue from all the rental space, the uses of the station for events, digital signage, etc.”
The Department of Transportation owns Union Station, and on Wednesday, the agency took it back.
“We are going … to make the investments to make sure that this station isn’t dirty, that we don’t have homelessness in Union Station,” Duffy said
But this is “not a power play,” he insisted.
“We’ve always had it, but we think that we can manage the property better, bring in more tenants, bring in more revenue, and that revenue is going to allow us to make investments in this beautiful building,” according to Duffy.
The Transportation Department will be doing its part to “make sure that people feel safe at Union Station,” he said.
Duffy held another press conference after getting off the NextGen Acela at Penn Station. He announced the station’s long-awaited rebuilding will start in 2027.
The Trump administration took over the $7 billion renovation project back in May. The Transportation Department will launch a public-private partnership with a $43 million federal grant toward preliminary engineering work.
“We are blessed to have a president who cares about New York,” Duffy said.
“When I meet with him, this is a common question he’ll ask me is, ‘Where are we at with Penn Station?’” he continued.
The project will move “at the speed of Trump,” according to the secretary.
“[Trump] wants to know about the developers who may bid and how it’s going to look, because he wants to make sure that this is a great representation for his administration, and he wants to serve the New York people incredibly well,” Duffy said.
