A few years ago, East Lansing's Amtrak station was in discussions to be shut down, according to Michigan State University's Fred Poston: "As the bus system changed, and students could get here more easily ... the ridership steadily increased on the rider system."
With this increase, along with a lot of hard work applying for the United States Department of Transportation Grant over and over, a new station should be built and operating by November 2013.
The current station will be torn down, with that area replaced with parking, and then the new station will be placed further behind the current one.
The building and the 100 new parking spots will not fit on the current property, so MSU will be giving them an extra chunk of land, located to their south, which could more than double what they have now.
Chairman of CATA's Board, Peter Kuhnmuench explains that although the property is owned by MSU, it's operated by CATA, even though currently, none of their busses make stops there: "It will allow our busses to come in and out of here with a lot more efficiency."
This means the same for out-of-city busses, soon offering more stops at more times.
As for the train rides, Kuhnmuench says the station will probably also offer access to Amtrak's Blue Water Line, connecting East Lansing with Port Huron and Chicago, then also high speed rail access between Detroit and Chicago, meaning the options won't be as limited as they are now.
