Item #1 is the proposed Rochester Intermodal Transit Facility. It will house a new station for Amtrak, inter-city buses in Phase 2, and eventually high-speed rail. This project was recently funded by a $15,000,000 grant from the federal government. Total budget is in the range of $24,000,000.
Item #2 is our regional transit authority’s (Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority, RGRTA) new Mortimer Street Bus Barn. Construction is slated to begin this year. Budget is $52,000,000.
This is the measure of our far thinking leaders, as they plan for a sustainable and useable future for our city. Great work, team.
A Town Square 
Well, it IS ugly…
But, RGTA couldn’t just let all the FREE federal money get away!
Now, onto the fact that there is no more FREE MONEY to pay for the upkeep and security at the shed….oops!
Given that we don’t even NEED #2 if RGRTA had a more rational route and scheduling structure, I’m still perplexed by the idea that the two facilities need to be co-located. Perhaps I’ve drunk the Kool Aid on this, but the needs of local bus riders are different from the needs of long distance travelers, whether they are traveling by bus, train, or plane.
Jason, I agree. I don’t know why a combined facility would be considered inter-modal rather than simply bi-modal. The ‘network’ effect of combining the two is nil. If I’m going inter-city, I am not going to hoof my suitcases through public transport. Avoiding the effort and worry over being late is well worth the cheap cab fare.
We have inter-city and intra-city needs. Sure a combination may save some space and construction costs, but perhaps not significantly given the low property value and added construction complexity.
The location of #2 seems better for intra-city anyways, for those who use the bus to get downtown. Better than walking in over the inner loop.
I think that Jason has correctly identified the real issue in the matter of our transit facilities: co-location would not be an issue if we had a transit routing system that did not require all buses to go downtown. If we rethought routing for RTS, we could, for substantially less money than the Mortimer Street facility, have a transit system that was much more effective. And one transit station downtown instead of two – varying passenger needs notwithstanding.
Examples of this rethinking abound. The best are hierarchical, and their vehicles, headways, and routes are variable as a function of their various destinations.
Our routing system, as I have said here previously, is a legacy of the dense, and much more populous city of the streetcar. This was a time when everyone DID want to go downtown, and the centrailized system made lots more sense.
And gents, imagine a city where we had more transit tools than the bus, Amtrak and Trailways. Imagine a network of modes that all worked together. Imagine….
I could go on….
The Inner Loop Freeway needs to be removed *entirely*.
I agree.