Members of Congress excoriated Union Station administrators for harassed photographers, untrained guards, plentiful panhandlers, and delaying or impeding station updates and expansions during a hearing Tuesday.

Officials from several companies in charge of developing and maintaining the historic property often had difficulty explaining which company should respond to complaints about a property that receives 87,600 visitors each day. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., asked executives from the Union Station Development Corp., Jones Lang LaSalle Retail and Union Station Investco to take several actions within the next 30 days, including submitting a plan for security guard training, addressing a subleasing snafu that prevented Megabus parking and clarifying an insurance issue with Amtrak.

The station recently sold air rights to develop a 3-million-square-foot addition for hotel, business and entertainment space after two years of negotiation.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., condemned the negotiation time and nearly 30-year delay in plans for relocating to Union Station the Greyhound Bus stop at First and K streets Northeast.

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Mica and Norton both noted that station annoyances mirror management confusion. They received testimony from Erin McCann, one of several who reported harassment and conflicting information on photography policies.

“Security officers should have more to do than investigate a tourist with a camera,” McCann said. Security officers stopped her snapping photos and threatened her with arrest several times, she said, even though, she said, Union Station administrators assured her the station allowed photography.

The business leaders agreed the station bears potential to fulfill Congress’ 1967 directive that it function as an “intermodal” station offering every kind of ground transportation.

“The time that we dump people at the edge of town has passed,” Mica said. “These are not third-class, Third World passengers.”

But, Norton said, that directive has long languished unfulfilled.

“This is one of the most frustrating matters since I’ve been involved in Congress,” she said. “This could be an intermodal center now if the people in charge had a mind for it.”