WWBT-TV, NBC-12 in Richmond, VA, 8/5/16:
Staples Mill busiest Amtrak stop in South, expansion for parking planned
After the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation confirmed Richmond’s Staples Mill Road Station is the busiest Amtrak location south of Union Station, officials announced the expansion of now limited parking spaces to accommodate the region’s growth in ridership.
This story has a few concerns:
Staples Mill has consistently outpaced Richmond’s Main Street Station in ridership since opening in 1975.
While the building was there since 1901, Main Street Station had been closed in 1972 after floods from Hurricane Agnes. Amtrak did not resume stopping there until 2003. So naturally between the 70's and 2003 the Staples Mill Road station was the only game in town thus Main Street's ridership was Zero.
When Main Street Station did reopen 13 years ago, the master plan was to first have the Newport News trains stop there. The second phase was to extend some trains that currently start or end at Staples Mill Road down to Main Street. And a third and final phase was to reroute all other trains that start or end in points south (Carolinian, Palmetto, Silver Service) via Main Street Station using the track that passes on the other side of the Main Street platform. They never went beyond the first phase of that plan. Had they done so, the demand for parking at Staples Mill would not be as high as it has been the past few years.