THE AMERICA ONE NEWS
Sep 3, 2025  |  
0
 | Remer,MN
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge.
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge and Reasoning Support for Fantasy Sports and Betting Enthusiasts.
back  
topic
David Zimmermann


NextImg:Duffy reveals plans to make DC's Union Station 'safe and beautiful again'

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy on Wednesday revealed the Trump administration’s plans to make Union Station in Washington, D.C., “safe and beautiful again.”

Duffy announced last week that the Department of Transportation was reclaiming station management at the major metro hub as part of President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital. The department has owned Union Station since the early 1980s, but has gradually reduced its control over the past four decades.

Recommended Stories

Transit passengers can expect to see renewed federal efforts to improve the station in the near future.

Duffy said the Trump administration will “embrace a ‘one building’ approach with the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation and Amtrak,” in a Wednesday op-ed for The Hill. That approach translates to improving security, securing private investments, maximizing the station’s space, and clearing its significant backlog of projects, he explained.

Union Station has undergone years of deferred maintenance and expansion plans due to insufficient funding. While the Biden administration planned to pay more than $10 billion over 13 years, it only provided at least $82 million toward that long-term goal last November after Trump won the presidential election.

Duffy says the Trump administration will renovate Union Station “at a fraction” of the $10 billion price tag. He estimates the project will only cost $170 million to improve elevators, lighting, and security, among other repairs.

“The station already smells nicer and looks cleaner just days after we launched our effort,” he wrote.

Duffy called Union Station an “embarrassing epicenter of our capital’s crime crisis,” describing how the “station had become dilapidated” and vagrancy had been running “rampant” for years due to inadequate leadership.

The Cabinet secretary says he is working closely with Trump, who has over 40 years of real estate experience, to “reverse this decline.”

The station has seen various crimes, including fatal shootings and sexual assaults, with a sizable homeless population loitering inside or near the landmark. Trump has targeted the district’s homelessness crisis since launching his federal crackdown on violent crime last month. The National Guard continues to maintain a presence at Union Station and other locations throughout the city.

Located blocks from the Capitol, Union Station is Amtrak’s second busiest station in the country behind New York City’s Penn Station. The Department of Transportation similarly took control of Penn Station’s $7 billion redevelopment vision earlier this year.

After improving and beautifying Union Station, Duffy teases that the department will turn its attention toward the capital’s metro system, a common place for juveniles to commit crimes. According to the Metro Transit Police, arrests and citations have increased 33% this year.

BOWSER COMMITS DC POLICE TO COORDINATE WITH FEDERAL OFFICERS INDEFINITELY, CITING CRIME DECREASE

Duffy named several instances of violent encounters at the city’s metro stations, including a first-hand account and a triple shooting that killed a congressional intern and wounded two others this summer.

“These incidents, alongside the statistics, suggest a war zone rather than a transit system,” he wrote. “The Trump administration will not tolerate this anarchy any longer.”