👋🏼 It's Cuneyt, back with Town Talker — my column on money and power.

It'll take 13 years, estimates say, and cost three times as much as One World Trade Center. It may define whether America can still build public megaprojects — this being the once-in-a-generation overhaul of Union Station. 

Why it matters: Average citizens want to know if they'll even be in town — or alive — to see it done. 

• "It is not a fantasy," says Doug Carr, who moved his family from Brooklyn to Northwest D.C. to take the reins two years ago. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." 

🚉 The big picture: Carr is in charge of modernizing the 116-year-old gateway to the nation's capital, and the transportation heart for a metropolis of 6.3 million people. 

• In the Big Apple, he worked on the WTC project before helping build the Moynihan Train Hall — a widely lauded, on-time, on-budget Beaux-Art pantheon to U.S. public rail. 

⚡️ Here's the problem: This tremendous modernization of Union Station — making it a high-speed rail hub, tripling passenger capacity at what's already the country's second busiest rail terminal — will cost an estimated $8.8 billion. 

• And come January it'll confront an Amtrak-wary GOP in Congress, without which it can't proceed — engineering feats aside.

The Moynihan —  with its $1.6 billion price tag — offers a blueprint only to a point: It was a stressful project, but it had a strong public booster, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who wanted to prove his state could get it done.

• At Union Station, the building and the politicking fall to Carr. 

Carr is CEO of a little-known entity called Union Station Redevelopment Corporation. It owns the project — not Amtrak, or the D.C. mayor or the president or Congress, who delegated management of the station to USRC in 1983.

🧳 Zoom in: To win support and funding, Carr has to work both local and federal Washington. 

• His sherpas include Anthony Williams, the former mayor who leads the pro-business Federal City Council. Chris Van Hollen and Eleanor Holmes Norton are key drivers in Congress, pushing a crucial bill to unlock more federal funding.
• Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" is required reading for him these days, he told me. 

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The project has completed 10% of its design phase. The concept is to preserve Union Station's historic hall. The 53 acres behind it will be turned into a vast concourse, with a train hall, bus terminal, underground areas for parking and pick-up/drop-off.

• The D.C. developer Akridge owns air rights to deck over the train tracks and build a mini-neighborhood in the sky.

🔎 Right now, USRC is using a newly won $24 million grant to study costs like soil analysis, to pinpoint where foundations need to be deep versus shallow. 

What they're saying: From Boston to D.C., "economic development forms along rail lines," says deputy mayor Nina Albert, a member of USRC's board. 

• "There is great will and recognition of the importance to the entire eastern seaboard."

🏅 Yes, but: Over the next decade, everything has to go right. Political buy-in and funding, Carr says, but also a management squad that "gels like a championship-winning sports team."

• It'll sometimes feel like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. What Amtrak might want — say, expanded waiting areas for its clientele — can be at odds with what suburban lines MARC and VRE want, like amenities for on-the-go commuters. 

How will Donald Trump and Republican control of Congress affect the project? 

• "It's hard to tell," Carr says, channeling diplomat-speak. 

Trump's a builder from New York. 

• "Yeah. He has to look no further than Penn Station Moynihan Train Hall as an example of what can be done."

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🔎 A new trial will put a spotlight on interactions between D.C. police and extremist groups in 2020 and 2021: A former D.C. police lieutenant is facing charges he improperly gave a heads up to the leader of the Proud Boys about his pending arrest before the Jan. 6 riot. (Washington Post)

🏈 The Commanders banished a three-game losing streak, beating the Titans 42-19 yesterday. Brian Robinson Jr. ran for a 40-yard TD. The team improved to 8-5 ahead of their bye week.

🎁 WMATA is selling holiday-themed Metro swag, including t-shirts, socks, toys and ornaments. A pop-up shop is open on the first floor of the MLK Jr. Memorial Library through Dec. 21.

A Georgetown townhouse where former President Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, once lived is on the market for $4.6 million.

Flashback: The newlyweds moved into the home in 1953, when JFK was a senator, and lived there for six months, per information from the listing agent.

• It's one of several Georgetown houses the Kennedys once called home, both as a couple and after Kennedy's death in 1963.

State of play: 3321 Dent Pl. NW has four bedrooms, five baths and 3,100 square feet.

• There's an elevator, a garden, wine storage and a guest suite.

The house sold for $2 million last year to a development group, who has renovated it, the listing agent tells Axios.

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Ready the carriages and make haste — a concert series inspired by music from the hit Netflix show "Bridgerton" is coming to D.C.

Why it matters: If you're looking for a holiday gift for the wannabe Lady Whistledown in your life, look no further.

State of play: "Candlelight: The Best of Bridgerton on Strings" is exactly as it sounds: a string quartet playing songs from the show — which often features covers of pop tracks by classical musicians — in a candlelit venue.

• The series kicks off on Dec. 5 at Brookland's St. Francis Hall and runs through Feb. 20.
• And, yes — "Bridgerton" style 'fits are encouraged.

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