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Reservations surface on proposed waterfront bus station
By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer
Construction of the city's new $15 million "transit center" overlooking the Burlington waterfront is set to begin in the fall, but as the bulldozers move closer, some city councilors and residents are wondering if the futuristic three-story building is what the community needs and if the site makes sense.
City officials last week defended the Battery Street project as an innovative "multi-modal" transportation terminal that will modernize public transit and help relieve traffic congestion. It is intended to link Chittenden County Transportation Authority buses with trains, regional buses, bike paths and ferries, they say.
Michael Monte, who heads the city's Community and Economic Development Office, was enthusiastic about the long-deferred project. The new terminal, he said, "will take our present (public transit) system from 1950 into a new century."
He said the project has cleared numerous permit and planning obstacles and is set to move ahead.
"It's permitted, financed and has had multiple approvals from City Council," he said.
Though the city has had no rail-passenger service since the Champlain Flyer shut down March 1, that won't always be true, said Dan Bradley, the city's transportation planner.
"I see that as part of the future," he said.
Richard Doyle, the regional administrator for the Federal Transit Administration, which is providing two-thirds of the money for the project, said a change of site wouldn't necessarily put FTA funding at risk, and that even without a current rail link, the project is defensible.
"We approved it on the basis that Burlington needed a new bus station," he said. "There was rail service when we approved it, but it has independent utility as a stand-alone project."
The absence of a current train connection in Burlington, however, and the building's location, give pause to some Battery Street business owners.
"It's kind of a wacky idea," said Bradford Hume, whose City Lights store is in the Cornerstone Building next to the project site. "I'd basically scrap the idea, if it were up to me, especially if no trains are coming here."
"This isn't just an ordinary piece of real estate," said Jared Gange, the owner of nearby Huntington Graphics. "It's an absolutely prime location in terms of tourist visitation and the beauty of the waterfront. It seems this project has a good chance of spoiling that."
Directly across Battery Street from the proposed site, Cheryl Foster, the manager of Advanced Vision, said she is worried about the mess of construction and an increase in traffic after the building is complete.
"It's going to be like another Shelburne Road here," she said.
She has concerns, too, that the new terminal will change the tenor of the neighborhood.
"There's something about a bus station that draws a certain kind of crowd," she said. "I can only see a lot of negatives."
Council reservations
Some city councilors, too, said they have reservations about the project at the site that currently houses the Mesa Factory Store and Waterfront Video.
"Over the last couple of years, the project's been scaled back," said Council President Andy Montroll, D-Ward 6. "Now it's more a bus station with unrelated office space. It's worth taking a second look at it, to see if this is the best site." He said he has asked the council's Transportation Committee to again consider the issue.
Jean O'Sullivan, D-Ward 7, who chairs the Transportation Committee, said that group will discuss the project this week and update the full council at its June 23 meeting.
She and Bill Keogh, D-Ward 5, another committee member, agreed the new transit center makes sense in terms of improving bus service. But both cautioned that its success would be contingent on the city getting firm commitments from tenants to fill the retail and office space. Without that income, O'Sullivan said, the building wouldn't be self-supporting and would be in danger of sliding into the seediness often associated with bus stations.
"We don't have anyone yet as a tenant," she said, "and I'm not supporting it if we don't have a commitment in advance. We're not in the business of putting up a speculative commercial building. I love the idea, if it's fully committed. If not, I hate it. This is a huge project," she continued. "If we do it, it has to be well thought-out. I don't want bobbing and weaving to make this thing work."
Carina Driscoll, P-Ward 3, the third member of the Transportation Committee, was less certain that the project is warranted. She called the Battery Street site "not ideal."
"The council needs to re-evaluate its position and make sure it's what we want to do," she said, (but) it's very late in the process to pick a new site."
The council's sole Republican, Kevin Curley, Ward 4, supports the concept of a new terminal, but said the building's intended location would devalue the waterfront, particularly with its proximity to the new science center, ECHO at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.
"It's idiotic to put a stinking, diesel-fume spewing bus station within a stone's throw of an eco-center."
Long-planned center
The project, contemplated since 1992, was envisaged in 1998 as a five-story building occupying a "super block" on Battery Street. It would have had 11 bus bays, 288 parking spaces and more than 67,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. At current prices, Bradley said, that version of the building would have cost "at least $30 million."
In its earlier incarnation, the new terminal would have served as the Burlington base for the Vermont Transit Co., but that bus company is no longer a part of the project.
"We were originally fully committed to going into the location," said Chris Andreasson, Vermont Transit's general manager, "but with the compromises on size, it seemed we'd have to have two Burlington facilities, and that would put the cost out of line."
Even in its current scaled-back version, the building would be a vast improvement over the 20-year-old makeshift bus transfer center at Cherry and Church streets, said CCTA General Manager Chris Cole.
"You don't build the project for the here and now," he said, "but for the future. We carry 1.6 million riders annually and the current system is inconvenient. Keeping people on a street corner downtown when it's 20 below isn't inviting or convenient."
CCTA has no data, Cole said, forecasting whether the proposed terminal, displaced from the immediate downtown, would increase the number of bus riders. But he said he is confident that a new facility and improved routes would draw new customers to CCTA.
"Logic dictates that if you make the system more convenient, you'll hold on to the riders you have and gain more," he said.
CCTA did provide results from a customer survey this April and May that suggests bus riders "always" or "usually" approve of the present service. Forty-three of 50 surveyed said their bus is on time; 50 of 50 said their driver is courteous; 38 of 50 said the buses run frequently enough; and 49 of 50 said the bus is convenient for them.
Cole said the new terminal also represents a long-overdue investment in public transit. While the airport and regional highways absorb public dollars year after year with little public discussion, he said, public transit suffers in comparison.
"How many millions of dollars do we spend on the airport, and no one questions that," he said, "and I have to ask why. When it comes to public transit, there hasn't been the level of investment to build a system that people want to use."
He said some opposition to the terminal arises from a disdain for bus riders.
"I think what's going on with a lot of folks who oppose" the new terminal, he said, "is that (they) do not want public access to the waterfront easier for people who use (buses)."
The current "inconvenient" public transit system, Cole said, repeating the argument made repeatedly by city officials, discourages potential bus riders and ensures they will continue to rely on their cars to get to work.
"If you don't build something different than the rest of the country has," he said, noting the proliferation of highways nationwide, "you'll end up looking like the rest of the country."
Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Transit center facts
-- PROPOSED LOCATION: 131 Battery St., adjacent to Burlington Bay Market & Cafe.
-- DESCRIPTION: Six bus bays, a 48-space parking garage, amenities for bicyclists, 17,000 square feet of rentable commercial and retail space, and improvements to Battery Street.
-- TIMETABLE: Construction to begin in the fall. Building occupancy, March 2005.
-- ESTIMATED COST: $15,053,000
-- FUNDING SOURCES: Federal: $9,769,791; city: $1,152,729; state: $1,152,729; private: $2,329,713.
-- FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS ALREADY MADE: $1,486,907
-- PROJECT GOAL: "To enhance public transit opportunities in downtown Burlington by providing significant infrastructure improvements that coupled with route and other system enhancements and additional mode choice will expand accessibility and improve mobility without expanding the roadway network."
Source: Burlington Community & Economic Development Office
What's next?
-- Negotiations continue between the city and lease-holders at 131 Battery St. to free the property for demolition of the existing building. The structure houses the Mesa Factory Store and Waterfront Video.
-- Report on project by Transportation Committee to City Council, 7:30 p.m. June 23.
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