Schenectady

A new train station for downtown Schenectady, on the drawing board since 2007, is expected to take shape starting this summer.

The first part of the project will be construction of a temporary station, to be located north of the station on the west side of the tracks along Erie Boulevard.

Amtrak will then move operations there, and the old station will be demolished, said state Department of Transportation spokesman Beau Duffy. Federal and state funds, in a 60-40 split, will cover the cost of the $13.7 million project, Duffy said.

Construction on the new station at the present site is expected to begin as soon as early summer, Duffy added.

The station, which dates from 1978, has seen a decline in ridership lately, even as other Capital Region stations in Rensselaer and Saratoga Springs showed gains.

Ridership in Amtrak's fiscal 2014 fell 1.8 percent to 60,677, while it climbed 2 percent in Saratoga Springs to 33,814, 2.2 percent in Albany-Rensselaer to 781,597, and 4 percent in Amsterdam to 11,119, according to Amtrak data.

Traffic in Hudson rose 7.3 percent, up to 187,776 in 2014.

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Bruce Becker, president of the Empire State Passengers Association, a rail advocacy organization, said that while there wasn't any one factor that he could say caused the loss of riders, he expects the new station, as has been the case elsewhere in the Amtrak system, will boost ridership.

The state DOT is working with Amtrak, the Capital District Transportation Authority, and the Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority on the project.

The state and Amtrak also have a number of other passenger rail improvements under way locally, including a long-awaited second track between Albany and Schenectady to remove a bottleneck on the Empire Corridor through upstate New York that frequently delays trains by a half hour or more as they wait for other trains to clear the single track.

Crossing improvements, a fourth track and platform extensions at the Rensselaer station, and a more resilient signal system between the Capital Region and Poughkeepsie are also part of the improvements.

Including the cost of the Schenectady station, the improvements are expected to total nearly $200 million.

eanderson@timesunion.com • 518-454-5323