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The Grand Rapids Amtrak Station is a train station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States served by Amtrak, the U.S. national railroad passenger system. The station is the terminus of the Pere Marquette line that connects Chicago's Union Station to Grand Rapids. It is located in the Downtown district of Grand Rapids at the corner of Wealthy Street and Market Avenue.

The station is served by Route 8 and Route 18 of the Interurban Transit Partnership (The Rapid), Grand Rapids' transit authority. Route 8 connects The Rapid's Central Station in downtown Grand Rapids to RiverTown Crossings mall in Grandville. Route 18 Connects the west side of Grand Rapids with the Rapid's Central Station.

New station
In October 2011, groundbreaking occurred on a new station set to replace the current one. It was expected to be completed by the spring of 2013 and will be named in honor of former Michigan Congressman Vern Ehlers. The new station will be located just south of the Rapid's Central Station, enabling fully intermodal transit while allowing for more efficient train turnarounds. It will be funded by a US$3.8 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration and $850,000 from the city of Grand Rapids. Due to delays in construction from CSX and the City of Grand Rapids, the station construction started in the summer of 2013. The Rapid posted on their Facebook page that an anticipated opening for the new station sometime in May 2014.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — More than a year and a half after its official groundbreaking ceremony, Grand Rapids' new Amtrak station finally is being built.

Crews began moving earth this week to prepare for the $5.1 million facility's construction after more than a year of delays pushed back the highly anticipated project's start date.

"It's been a long time, really, because we always planned on this being a truly intermodal station," said Peter Varga, CEO of The Rapid bus system, which is spearheading the project.

The new station, which will be named for former West Michigan congressman Vern Ehlers, is expected to be built by December, and operational by April 2014, Varga said.

Ehlers joined a smattering of local officials for an October 2011 groundbreaking ceremony at the station's site, just south of Rapid Central Station near the Wealthy Street overpass.

Work building the station was slow to begin after the ceremony because of prolonged talks between the Michigan Department of Transportation and CSX Corp., which owns the railroad to which the station will connect.Those talks, on switching and signaling on the tracks, were resolved last month, giving project leaders a green light to begin building the new facility.

Once the new station is operational next year, the existing Amtrak station at the corner of Wealthy Street and Market Avenue will be decommissioned.

Calling the new station "intermodal" means, in essence, multipurpose. For travelers, it means the ability to access commuting options in one area.

A person, for example, would be able to ride a Rapid, Greyhound or Indian Trails bus to Central Station and hop aboard a Chicago-bound train, or the other way around.

"Even back in 2004," when Rapid Central Station opened, "that was part of our plan," Varga said. "It's been a long time in the making, which is why sometimes you just have to be patient and you have to be diligent."

The station is being paid for using $3.8 million in federal funding earmarked by Ehlers during his time in Congress (though he later voted against the bill that contained the money).

The Downtown Development Authority also funneled $850,000 to the project, which will be used to build the actual brick-and-mortar station.

The city of Grand Rapids also fronted several hundred-thousand to reinforce a sewer line beneath the station, and to relocate a fiber optic cable conduit at the site.

Project leaders are able to spend as much as $5.9 million on the project, per guidelines approved by the Interurban Transit Partnership, which operates The Rapid.

Eventually, officials hope the new station allows Amtrak to add a second daily trip between Grand Rapids and Chicago.

Now, the Pere Marquette Line only runs to and from Chicago once per day. The line saw a ridership decrease for the first six months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2012.

Still, the line also has grown by leaps and bounds, and its ridership gains since 1997 have far outpaced Amtrak's other Michigan routes.