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The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city plans to build a multi-modal transportation center on the site of the parking garage for the County-City Building.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her from left are council members Richard Meginnis, Sändra Washington and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her from left are council members Richard Meginnis, Sändra Washington and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott and Mike Davis, StarTran director.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her is Councilman Richard Meginnis (left) and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott.
Federal officials awarded Lincoln a $23.6 million grant for a new bus transfer station — a long-awaited and substantial boost to StarTran’s efforts to provide riders and drivers a modern transportation hub.
“This is a truly historic day for our community,” Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird said Thursday in announcing the grant. “If I knew how to do a cartwheel, I’d do one.”
The new transfer station — to be built on the block that currently serves as the parking lot for the County-City Building — is expected to cost $32.2 million, said Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott.
Officials plan to begin the design phase in 2023, start construction in 2024 and finish it in 2025, she said.
The grant for a “multimodal” transfer station has been a long time coming: Since 2014 the city has applied eight times for a federal grant to build it to replace the current transfer station near the Gold’s Building at 11th and N streets.
Lincoln had scored well on previous applications for the highly competitive grant, but had yet to be successful.
In the most recent application, made in April, Lincoln Transportation and Utilities officials named the County-City Building parking lot on the block bounded by Ninth, 10th, K and L streets as a possible location — one of the factors Gaylor Baird said helped them succeed this time.
They made a last-minute appeal to the Lancaster County Board to give them the go-ahead to include the parking lot in the grant application after finding out the previous location they’d been considering wouldn’t work. The city and county co-own the parking lot.
In April, officials said the conceptual design would include a parking structure built over the transfer station, increasing existing parking from 475 spaces to 600 to 700.
The Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development wrote a letter to federal officials in support of the grant, saying a new transfer station would help support two decades of private and public investment in the downtown area.
On Thursday, chamber officials said they were pleased to see Lincoln got the award. StarTran Transit Manager Mike Davis said a cost-benefit analysis of the transfer station showed every dollar of investment will provide $1.20 in benefits to the community.
Gaylor Baird said efforts to address different needs in the community and prioritizing the city’s climate initiatives also helped them this time.
The new transfer station helps move the city toward its Climate Action Plan goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a net 80% by 2050 and to convert the city’s vehicle fleet to 100% electric or alternative fuel vehicles by 2040, she said.
StarTran’s progress toward that goal helped in the grant application: In addition to 10 electric buses, StarTran’s 67-bus fleet has 30 buses that use compressed natural gas and it will get another 11 in September, Elliott said.
City officials — including the mayor — also stepped up conversations with federal officials about the need in Lincoln, including that bus drivers have no place to use the restroom while they’re working, nor do riders while they’re waiting for buses.
The current transfer station lacks such basic amenities and indoor spaces, and is only big enough for six buses. Loitering and trash have been problems for years.
The new transportation hub will offer 18 bus bays, protected passenger boarding, covered walkways, a waiting room, better security (the sheriff’s office is adjacent to it) and administrative offices, Elliott said.
It also will offer better separation between pedestrians and buses, and will be more environmentally sustainable, offering charging stations for the city’s 10 electric buses, Elliott said. That will allow those buses to do intermittent charges during the day and remain in service longer.
StarTran’s administrative offices will move from the current location at 710 J St., and the transfer station will include bike racks, and BikeLNK and ScooterLNK rentals. It also will house city parking operations, Elliott said.
“The goal is to have all transportation available at the center of the city,” she said, and to encourage bus ridership on zero- to low-emission buses. The city now provides about 10,000 rides a day.
The $23.6 million grant requires a local match of $8.3 million — the value of the land — and an additional $842,000 in local funding, Elliott said.
A new bus transfer station was identified as a need in three studies dating back to 2004 and is part of the 2050 long-range transportation plan and the downtown master plan.
Earlier grant applications envisioned a transportation center on the block bounded by Ninth, 10th, M and N streets, but later the city reapplied with a scaled-down plan on the southern half of the block.
A previous application included the prospect of $500,000 in tax-increment financing the city earmarked as part of earlier redevelopment plans for the Gold’s Building. The money would have been used for demolition of the old police station.
Gaylor Baird said the “historic investment” in Lincoln’s public transportation system was made possible by the recently approved federal bipartisan infrastructure act and in addition to thanking city and local officials she thanked the Biden administration and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The grant was awarded through the federal RAISE program, which awarded more than $2.2 billion in grants to help urban and rural communities on projects to modernize roads, bridges, transit, rail, ports and intermodal transportation.
The timeline for the new transfer station doesn’t solve the city’s most immediate problem: finding a temporary transfer station to replace the one near the Gold’s Building, where renovations have begun. Elliott said they are working with the Gold’s developers, looking for a space and hope to have more information on a location in the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, they’ll begin planning for the new transfer station, and she promised the public would have a chance to weigh in on the design phase when it begins next year.
“This grant makes our dreams come true as we take StarTran services, along with a variety of other transportation options, to the next level and begin building a state-of-the-art multimodal transportation center,” Elliott said.
LINCOLN, NEB. - 08/07/2022 - Arianna points to a rocket pop on a ice cream truck at Holmes Lake Park, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. NOAH RIFFE, Journal Star
Parade watchers race to collect candy thrown during the Wilber Czech Festival on Saturday.
Grammy award winning American blues singer Bonnie Raitt performs at the Pinewood Bowl on Tuesday.
Saltdogs third baseman Ryan Long (left) beats the tag as Gary SouthShore second baseman Michael Woodworth drops the ball on Monday at Haymarket Park.
Fair attendees ride a motorcycle-themed merry-go-round during the Lancaster County Super Fair on Sunday.
A 26-year-old man told Lincoln Police he was "beaten, burned with a blowtorch and branded" with the word "thief" after he was ambushed by two men amid a drug deal at a warehouse near Interstate 80 and 56th Street, Investigator Christopher Schamber said in an arrest affidavit.
Layla Karee (left) comforts Shireen Jardo Alhanto who begins to sob while speaking of her family both missing and deceased during a ceremony to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the Yazidi genocide on Wednesday in Malcolm. Alhanto lost two brothers, and 15 members of her family are still missing.
Nebraska quarterback Casey Thompson claps hands during practice Monday at Hawks Championship Center.
Nebraska Wesleyan athletic training student Sabrina Ochterbeck is placed in an ice bath by athletic trainers (from left) Terry Adair of Bryan Health, Tyler Rediger of Lincoln Southeast, Bryan Butler of Lincoln Northeast and Charity Rainey of Lincoln High on Friday. With fall practice set to begin Monday, athletic trainers reviewed how to prevent and treat heat illnesses.
Artist Toan Vuong is shown on his front porch with his compositions created using date stamps. Vuong will participate in Porch-Art-Palooza, a sprawling art sale on 30 front porches in the Near South, Everett and South Salt Creek neighborhoods, on Sunday.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.
Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.
Margaret Reist is a recovering education reporter now writing about local and county government and the people who live in the city where she was born and raised.
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The city is again applying for a federal grant to build a bus transfer station, this time at a new location: the city-county parking lot at Ninth and K streets.
Fifteen tourism nonprofits got federal stimulus grants to help them recover losses they suffered during the pandemic. Awardees range from the Lincoln Children's Zoo to Flatwater Shakespeare Co.
In some cases the barcodes — used to check out at lunch and for attendance — weren't scannable or were on the wrong side.
The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city shared this conceptual design of a bus transfer station it plans to build where the County-City Building parking lot sits at Ninth and K streets.
The city plans to build a multi-modal transportation center on the site of the parking garage for the County-City Building.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her from left are council members Richard Meginnis, Sändra Washington and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her from left are council members Richard Meginnis, Sändra Washington and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott and Mike Davis, StarTran director.
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird (at podium) announces a new $23.6 million federal grant to help design a new multimodal transportation center at the StarTran station on Thursday. Behind her is Councilman Richard Meginnis (left) and Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Director Liz Elliott.
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