For Mary Sullivan, Centro’s downtown bus hub can’t come soon enough. It will be good, she says, to come in out of the cold.
“Last week was really bad,” said Sullivan, 21, of North Syracuse and a housekeeper at the Museum of Science and Technology downtown. She means the morning of Feb.15, 2011, when the temperature dropped to nine degrees. “I couldn’t even sit down on these benches because they felt ice cold.”
Sullivan is among scores of bus riders who wait for their ride at the corner of Salina and Fayette streets. They stand outside, with hands shoved deep into their pockets and wait for the bus. A few are lucky to sit on the benches. And many riders are excited about the new bus hub planned to be built by the end of this year.
The idea of a new hub has been around for about a decade, says Steve Koegel, Centro’s marketing and communications director. The new bus hub will be built at the corner of Adams/South Warren Street and South Salina Street.
“It’ll be a new structure with a fully enclosed waiting area and a loading area that will protect our customers from the weather,” Koegel said.
For the winter season, Koegel says, about 100,000 people ride the Centro bus every month. And many of them come to the hub’s site in downtown to change buses. “About 20 percent of them transfer from one bus to another,” said Koegel.
The budget for the new hub is $12.3 million, said Koegel. The federal government has contributed about 80 percent — or $8.5 million — to the Regional Transportation Center for construction. “The other 20 percent come from state and local sources,” he said.
Outside the Rite-Aid store on Salina and West Fayette Street, Mary Sullivan waits for her bus three times a week to get between her home in North Syracuse and her job downtown. The current shelters are of clear plastic on three sides. They do a pretty good job protecting her from rain and snow. But they don’t keep her from the cold.
The new in-door facility may help many more people to ride the bus, Sullivan suggested. “Especially the elderly,” she said. “Because it’ll be easier for them wait inside when buses run late.”
(Kelly Kim is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and international relations.)
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