Train "station": new building or fix up the platform?

The knee jerk reaction is to want a new building to function as a train "station".

Some White Plains lifers lament the destruction of an old train station. My only recollections as an adult transplant were reports in the 1970s of the police arresting perverts, the vernacular of the time, in the men's room.

After demolition, this being White Plains, the area remained vacant for parts of three decades. It was known as the hole in the ground, which eventually had trees growing there. Such is the traditional construction and renovation time line in White Plains. Consider what preceded the Sam Ashe store at 178 Mamaroneck Avenue: the "Cheesery", a deli restaurant, which was an eye sore for parts of three decades. Again the Common Council was impotent.

The old train station building site now has the unimaginatively designed twin tower rental complex 15 Bank Street, formerly Bank Street Commons. So there's no way to put a new train building on the previous site for those who want a new building.

Stamford, CT train station

Where then? On one of those really valuable municipal parking lots that the city could have converted into a revenue generator decades ago? That would be a colossally bad idea. The only realistic option is to redesign the current platform.

While I support his efforts to push for change, unfortunately in his zeal, Mayor Thomas Roach has criticized the form and function of the current train "station" so much that he may have raised unrealistic expectations. Since the "station" is above two major roads, Main Street and Hamilton Avenue, it must be a raised platform. And what "station" between White Plains and Grand Central has much more than a platform. To get onto any train anywhere, passengers must get onto a platform, raised or not.

 The White Plains platform is very long. One problem is that everyone wants to ride in the front cars into Grand Central because that's where most people exit. The other substantive problem is that much of the space of the platform between the front and the end is made smaller by the "building" part, which does not even use the space well. Maybe the ticket selling area should be on ground level.

Probably the best option is to use some of the space on the east side of the tracks that's currently jammed with taxis and those deplorable regional buses such as Adirondack. Yesterday at 5 PM I spotted a huge Adirondack Trailways bus going north on Mamaroneck Avenue, apparently heading to Martine Avenue, presumably on route to the regional bus depot at the train "station". Get those regional buses the heck out of downtown White Plains. They're huge and serve very few residents. It's bad enough that the Westchester County Bee Line has a major bus depot at the White Plains train "station"; that should also be moved. No one wants to live near a bus depot. No one.