Plans to overhaul Chicago Union Station could take a step forward in 2025, but more money is needed

Long-running plans to revamp Chicago’s Union Station are poised to take a step forward in 2025, as Amtrak prepares to begin modernizing and boosting capacity at the commuter and intercity rail hub.

But the construction marks only one step of Amtrak’s plans to overhaul parts of the station. The railroad, which owns Union Station, still needs to line up more funding for the rest of the work, a prospect that could face questions with a new presidential administration set to take office.

Plans for Union Station include rehabbing old, abandoned platforms that once served trains carrying U.S. Postal Service mail, returning them to service to add capacity for more trains. Amtrak also plans to overhaul the station concourse to improve the way passengers move through the area, renovate and expand other platforms and bring them into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and make other upgrades.

The nearly 100-year-old station, which serves Metra and Amtrak trains, was last renovated in 1991. The latest work is intended to help accommodate more passengers, improving their flow through the station and allowing them to board and disembark trains quicker.

The work is set to begin next year with construction to return the former mail platforms to service, which could begin as soon as the spring, Amtrak spokesperson Marc Magliari said. Amtrak is also working on designing the revamped concourse, and plans later in the year to share initial ideas with the public, he said.

Construction outside Union Station on Canal Street will also continue into the coming year. The street has been closed near the station since summer 2023 while the Chicago Department of Transportation rebuilds the road, and Amtrak has had to stop using one of the tracks below during the work, Magliari said. CDOT spokeswoman Erica Schroeder did not provide an estimated timeline to finish the project.

For revamping the station and platforms, Amtrak has received about $137 million in federal grants and an annual appropriation, along with additional money for a larger Chicago-area rail improvement project. Combined with local money from Chicago and Cook County, the railroad expects to already have enough to complete construction on the former mail platforms, Magliari said.

But more money will be needed for work to widen the other platforms and redesign the concourse. Magliari declined to put a price tag on the rest of the project, saying costs couldn’t be estimated until design work was finished. The railroad is actively applying for more federal grants, he said.

Amtrak will be seeking more funding from the Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress likely to be less enthusiastic about funding passenger rail than President Joe Biden, well known to be an Amtrak fan. President-elect Donald Trump tried to slash funding for some Amtrak service during his first administration, though observers say it’s too soon to know what could be in store for station projects like those in Chicago in the coming years.

“Congress expects us to serve passengers well, they want to see ridership grow,” Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner told Bloomberg Government in early December. “We’ve been able to do that, we’re going to continue to do that.”

Amtrak got a boost in funding from the 2021 infrastructure law, and grants funded under that law could be spared immediate cuts, said Audrey Wennink, transportation director for the Metropolitan Planning Council. The law funds infrastructure programs through 2026, and changes are more likely when it expires, she said.

Federal appropriations for Amtrak could change sooner, she said.

Still, work at Union Station is a strong candidate for federal money, Wennink said.

“I can’t project what this administration’s going to do, but there’s a lot of infrastructure here that exists and provides a lot of benefit,” she said. “And a lot of value can be generated by just some upgrades. I certainly hope that they’ll be successful (in getting more money), because it’s pretty chaotic in Union Station and we really need it.”

The Union Station work is partly intended to accommodate more passengers. Amtrak recently announced the railroad reached record ridership nationwide during the year that ended in September, though ridership in Chicago has not yet exceeded prepandemic levels.

Union Station served slightly more than 3 million arriving and departing Amtrak passengers during the 12 months between October 2023 and September 2024, according to numbers provided by Magliari. That was up from 2.7 million the year before, but below the 3.3 million passengers Union Station served in 2019.

The station is also the terminal for six of Metra’s 11 train lines. About 110,000 Metra riders pass through the station on an average weekday, according to Amtrak figures. In 2019, Union Station served 32.6 million Metra passengers, but ridership on the commuter rail line has not fully rebounded since the pandemic.

Still, expanding Union Station’s passenger volume is critical to Chicago, said Rick Harnish, executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance. With the rest of the funding for that work not yet identified, he called on the state, city and business community to step up efforts.

Even the money already awarded is a relatively small amount, especially compared with several large bridge and tunnel projects along Amtrak’s busy Northeast Corridor, he said.

“If we care about maintaining the strength of the Loop and the rest of the city, we need to figure out how to expand Union Station quickly,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed.