Niagara Falls Reporter
Home | Archive / Search
JULY 14 - JULY 22, 2015

No Contracts With Amtrak, Tour Companies To Occupy, Use New Train Station Here

By Mike Hudson

JULY 14, 2015

Will a train station really become a tourist attraction?

Buffalo–Niagara Falls Congressman Brian Higgins joined Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster Monday morning for a fairly massive photo op and press event meant to call attention to the new passenger train station the mayor is building on Whirlpool Street.

Rumors of a contract with Amtrak to use the station, tour buses and Greyhound bringing hordes of visitors with suitcases full of cash, an Underground Railroad museum and other nonsense clogged the airwaves.

“The existing station is an old freight station in a freight yard miles from the downtown area," Dyster told a television interviewer. "Now you're going to have a tourist attraction in the station itself."

Actually, the new station is closer to the falls by only a few hundred feet. Both are located about two miles from the state park and the downtown tourism corridor. And despite the mayor’s optimism, it is unlikely that many tourists will come to Niagara Falls to see his new train station.

"There will be buses, tour buses, trolley passengers and bicycles and skateboards riding at the new train station," said Dyster.

Currently, there is no contract between Amtrak and the city to use the new facility, which is costing the taxpayers $43 million. Any contract would have to be approved by the city Council, and nothing has been presented to them yet.

There is little likelihood Amtrak will be renting the entire 22,000 square foot building in any event. The heavily subsidized passenger rail line’s policy is to rent just enough square footage needed to service the passengers using the station, currently fewer than 100 a day.

The new station is about 10 times larger than what Amtrak would require based on those ridership figures.

But what of the tour buses, what about Greyhound? Some might ask.

Currently, tour buses coming to Niagara Falls employ already existing lots downtown, primarily those of the Seneca-Niagara Casino, Smokin’ Joes downtown attractions and the One Niagara building located at the state park entrance. Why they would choose to dump their paying passengers off two miles away and hand them the added inconvenience and expense of taking another bus to get to where they actually want to go – to see the Falls - is a question no one has addressed, much less answered.

And as with Amtrak itself, the city has no contract with any bus company to use the obscenely expensive new station.

Little was said of the Underground Railroad museum, which was once heralded as the centerpiece of the project. More than $1.7 million has already been handed over to the city’s Underground Railroad Heritage Commission, though what has been done with it is anybody’s guess.

No artifacts have been known to have been acquired, no exhibits have been commissioned and an expensive study failed to turn up a single historical site anywhere in the city that could be indisputably linked with the activities of the Underground Railroad.

Higgins said that the $44 million investment is expected to spur public and private sector growth.

“The combination of the two hopefully will result in record investment in Niagara Falls," Higgins says. "In addition to all the other projects going on, this is arguably the greatest waterfront in all the world. The problem is people in this community have been denied access for so long."

 

 

 

 

Dyster Election Year Plan for ‘Business Park’ May Cost City Taxpayers More Than $1 Million
Szwedo Makes Point on Taxes! Stands up to Bullying at City Hall
Number One in Crime and Danger, Niagara Falls Residents Need Relief, and Change of Direction
No Contracts With Amtrak, Tour Companies To Occupy, Use New Train Station Here
Career Criminal, Rapist Undone By Overwhelming Stupidity Here
LaSalle Waterfront Park a Place Where Fingers Can be Bitten Off
WNYMuslims participates in ‘Kids 4 Kids’ Toy Drive
State Comptroller Found There’s no Accounting for Dyster Fiscal Mysteries
We Must Bring the City Back from the Edge of Insolvency
Temporary Maid of the Mist Shutdown Does Not Cause End of World, Life As We Know It.
Herbal Agriculture Inks Deal With Colorado
Mott’s the problem with Jayne Park grass maintenance Mott is going on with Jayne Park grass maintenance? Mott’s wrong with Jayne Park maintenance? Mott’s it all about Mayor Dyster?
Accardo Makes Waves at Steps of City Hall
Accardo, Dyster Take Different Approaches To Running Small Family Business Here
Challenges to Dyster, Pascoal Petitions Filed on Behalf of Choolokian, Szwedo
Error by Bomb Sniffing Dog Points Up Problematic Nature of Searches
Only in NT: Oliver Street Transformation Stagnant in North Tonawanda
Mark Levin Sounds “Death Panel” Alarm on Federal “End of Life” Consults! ‘I Am Becoming Increasingly Radicalized For Liberty’
Speaking Out Against the SAFE Act
Kristen Grandinetti Stands for Something So Does Planned Parenthood
Niagara Falls to Launch African American Male Wellness Walk Dr. Underwood Named Honorary Chairman
'A Hope and a Prayer From the Swamp' Sung to the tune of "she'll be comin' round the mountain"
Erie County Water Authority Is Haven for Politically Connected
Local Historian Gromosiak Honored with Park Plaque
City Hall Jokes

Contact Info

©2014 The Niagara Falls Reporter Inc.
POB 3083, Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14304
E-mail: info@niagarafallsreporter.com
Phone: (716) 284-5595

Publisher and Editor in Chief: Frank Parlato
Managing Editor: Dr. Chitra Selvaraj
Senior Editor: Tony Farina