The Olympian

Bus depot move is a good idea

The Olympian • Published August 02, 2007

It makes perfect sense to move the Greyhound bus station to the Intercity Transit center in downtown Olympia.

The merger of the two transportation services has been debated in this community for decades. The conversation ebbs and flows, and, to date, has led nowhere. Perhaps now is the time when the proposal will gain a foothold.

Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Vancouver, has inserted $250,000 in a federal budget proposal to design a multiuse transportation hub at the transit center on State Avenue. It’s far from a done deal, however. A year ago, Baird got $350,000 inserted in a draft budget for the same purpose, but the planning money was stripped out in a congressional debate about providing dollars for the war in Iraq.

Things are different this year, which gives the South Sound reason for hope.

Most importantly, Baird and his fellow Democrats are in the majority instead of the minority. It’s easier to get an appropriation inserted in the final budget from the majority side of the aisle. That gives Roger Dean, development director for Intercity Transit, encouragement. All eyes are on the 2008 House Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill which must survive House and Senate votes and withstand a presidential veto.

Time will tell.

Consolidating bus services into one location will reduce confusion and ease the transfer of passengers from one system to the other.

Greyhound, a Dallas-based national carrier, has operated out of an art deco building at the corner of Capitol Way and Seventh Avenue Southeast since 1937. In 2001, Greyhound announced plans to abandon the bus station and build a 3,500-square-foot building adjacent to the Intercity Transit transfer station at Washington Street and State Avenue. Unfortunately, that 2001 plan never came together. Greyhound was going in and out of bankruptcy, and lack of sufficient capital scuttled the proposal.

Today, Greyhound passengers disembark five blocks from the transit center. It would be much more convenient to have those Greyhound passengers deposited at the transit center were they could catch a bus to pretty much any location in the greater Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater area — including the Centennial railroad station and Amtrak service off Yelm Highway.

The good news is Greyhound officials are open to the idea of shifting to the IT transit center.

“We do participate in a lot of similar facilities,” said Anna Folmnsby, Greyhound corporate spokeswoman. She said riders can benefit from transportation connections that link to local travel options.

The northeast corner of the transit center at State Avenue and Washington Street is planted in grass but was designed to accommodate a national carrier like Greyhound, which runs six Portland-to-Seattle buses each day and five buses on the return trip from Seattle to Portland.

If the feds appropriate the $250,000, it would be up to Intercity Transit to come up with a $250,000 match to complete the design work. The next challenge would be construction dollars.

Those are surmountable hurdles. Let’s hope that, for the first time in 20 years, this plan finally takes root.