Mass transit makeover

Shonna Edwards stands amid her matching red suitcases and bags waiting for the eastbound Greyhound.

She is heading to Memphis.

She has been using the bus service for years. She complains about the location of the terminal on Big Bear Boulevard, north of I-70, and said she would prefer it to be more central.

“It’s not convenient here,” Edwards said. “There’s nothing here. There’s just a bus station.”

She preferred it when the station was on Business Loop 70 and was “surrounded by restaurants.”

The city and local Greyhound representatives are in the early stages of talks that could return the interstate bus line to downtown Columbia.

“It would be more convenient,” Edwards said about the possible move of the terminal to Wabash Station.

“It would be in the center of town.”

City Public Works officials are talking with Greyhound to understand what would need to be done to accommodate the bus line at the Wabash Station.

The former train station at Tenth and Walnut streets is in the midst of a $2.5 million renovation that’s expected to be finished in July. The project, designed to turn Wabash Station into a multipurpose transportation hub, includes adding administrative offices, expanding the passenger waiting area, installing new public restrooms and building an outside canopy for passengers.

The station already serves as a base for city buses and private taxis, and the city is considering the future additions of Greyhound as well as a bicycle center.

The ongoing redesign has taken these possibilities into account, with a new parking lot and a canopy that’s tall enough to accommodate larger buses.

These current renovations and possible future changes are made to help make transportation more convenient, said Public Works Supervisor Mark Grindstaff.

A move to Wabash Station would also allow Greyhound to work more closely with city buses.

“Our passengers use city buses quite a bit, and the closest bus stop to our office right now is a block and a half away,” said Dale Adkinson, manager of the Greyhound terminal.

“The move would be good for passengers, and great for college students.”

Regardless of location, they will stay busy, Adkinson says.

Greyhound’s original location was at the corner of Tenth and Cherry Streets in what is now CC’s City Broiler restaurant. In the mid-1990s, it moved to an office on Business Loop 70 across from Parkade Plaza. In October 2003, the office moved again to its current location.

Greyhound has buses that leave for both St. Louis and Kansas City three times a day. On Fridays and Sundays they have an extra bus for each route.

The possible next phase would involve building an administration building. This would turn the administrative addition being built now into a multipurpose facility that could include a restaurant, and a bike center like the one in Chicago’s Millennium Park but on a smaller scale.

“There may not be enough density in Columbia to have a facility as large as the one in Chicago,” Ted Curtis, senior planner of the PedNet Project. “We’re not sure what this bike center will be, but we do know that we want to connect bike routes with it.”

Grindstaff and Curtis have discussed possible options for this next phase such as bicycle parking or bike lockers for commuters.

The city has been making steps to help Columbia become more connected, such as adding bike racks to its buses.

“We know that we can’t go to every corner of the city,” Grindstaff said, “but we want to create a system with options so people know they can bike part of the way and take a bus, for example.”

These future projects are still in their initial conceptual stages and any construction is contingent on federal funding through the Federal Transportation Act.