Transit Center: What about the riders?

At the last two Kootenai Master Planning Organization (KMPO) meetings, I’ve raised questions about the transit center building. It’s been discussed for nearly two years. I’ve seen plans, though they have changed. So, my questions at KMPO were regarding those changes.

As an elected official, I want to know what the public is getting for its money. I’ve discussed the transit center with various county officials, but their answers are contradicting. Therefore, I wanted my questions made at a public meeting, on the record.

Specifically, I asked about the inside of the building and how many offices it would have. The answer I received was, “We don’t know.”

I responded by asking, “How do you construct a building when you don’t know how many rooms you need inside?”

The staffer was unable to answer.

“So,” I asked, “You’re going to have bathrooms, a break room for the drivers, offices, a lobby for the guests …”

Whoop! Hold on.

The transit center — the design we saw over a year ago, a design that included a lobby — no longer has an inside area for riders? Just minutes earlier, the transit people told us about an elderly woman who rides the system into town for her dialysis. Now she must wait outside in the cold?

Yes, she waits in the cold because the building design currently has no lobby for passengers. It would have “n” number of offices, a quantity to be revealed later, but a value not based on the number of current employees. No, they build the number of offices the funding will pay for: two, three, 20, whatever.

So, what’s the difference between a “transit center” and an office building with a bus stop out front?

It turns out a big difference exists! Specifically, the transit center funding requires that it accommodate transit system passengers before it accommodates offices for those who administer the system.

I do not object to the idea of a transit center. I don’t believe it will become a locus of crime. No, what this confusing episode reveals is the odor of empire building. It’s the age-old practice of an organization servicing itself before it serves its mission statement: The priority for county transit must be getting people from point A to point B, not in warehousing bureaucrats.

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Dan Gookin is a member of the KMPO board and Coeur d’Alene City Council.