PHOTO BY JENNA FRISBY / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
GROUNDBREAKING … Elected Officials from across Ohio, Amtrak employees, and members of the Bryan community gathered Friday morning to be a part of breaking ground for the new Amtrak Bryan Station improvements that will be happening. Pictured are: Executive Director of The Ability Center Stuart James, Mayor of Bryan Carrie Schlade, State Senator Rob McColley, State Representative Jim Hoops, Senior Advisor of Transportation and Infrastructure (from Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown’s office) Homer Carlisle, Congress Regional Outreach (from U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s office) David Zavac, Northwest Ohio District Director (from Ohio Senator JD Vance’s office) Timothy Schneider, and the Director of Portfolio Management for Amtrak Mike Phillips.
By: Jenna Frisby
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jenna@thevillagereporter.com
The groundbreaking for Amtrak’s newest renovation project took place on Friday, June 13th at 1:00 p.m. at the Bryan Amtrak location off of Paige Street just north of town in Bryan, OH.
Present at the event were more than a handful of elected officials, a multitude of individuals from Amtrak, community residents, as well as plenty of media for coverage of the event.
The renovation project will completely resurface the look of the location. The improvements will include making the station completely ADA-compliant.
The new station will also include a 350-foot platform, a station building with an air conditioned waiting room, bathrooms, as well as accessibility improvements which will include: new parking, lighting, ramps, and sidewalks.
”We’re going to have a nicely well-lit platform, that’s going to be ADA-compliant and a more welcoming building and we couldn’t be happier about it,” said Amtrak’s Senior Public Relations Manager, Marc Magliari.
Amtrak also informed the crowd that they have invested more than $880 million since 2011 in upgrades and improvement projects to 124 stations across America. Of those projects 20 have been brought into ADA-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act from 2023.
Amtrak also spoke that they have high hopes of opening new routes that will connect Bryan to Detroit in the future.
The entirety of Amtrak’s plan is to connect from the east coast all the way to Montreal, Canada. This project is another portion added to their expansion for passenger rail services.
Amtrak’s major renovation project at the Bryan station is expected to take 18 months to complete and holds a budget projection of $5 million dollars all of which is invested by Amtrak.