Transit Center just what the community needs

After years of talking and planning, the buses are scheduled to roll today through the new Riverstone Transit Center in Coeur d’Alene.

It’s about time.

Forces behind the new $2.16 million facility are so diverse, this was never going to be a simple project to get off the ground. When you require collaboration from the likes of Kootenai County, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, local government entities, the Federal Transit Administration and the Idaho Transportation Department, maybe it’s a miracle that the new transit center got built at all.

And then there were the other forces.

Fears of the center being a magnet for criminals broke the surface from time to time, spurred on by those who apparently equate public transportation usage with subhuman citizens. Fear-mongering eclipsed the absurd when county officials were warned that this bus thing would eventually attract Muslims.

In fact, this bus thing is good for the people of Kootenai County. And its headquarters in Riverstone is pretty close to ideal.

Touring the facility recently, it’s obvious that the structure is attractive and designed for efficiency without being extravagant or becoming some bureaucrat’s legacy. It appears to be a solid investment of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

While critics can point with some accuracy to riders who have little regard for the privileges taxpayers are providing them, far more appreciate the service and will be good stewards of the investment. These are people who need public transportation to get to work; people who rely on bus service to get to Kootenai Health and elsewhere for medical care; the elderly and the young; people who need a ride to get to a restaurant or a movie or the grocery store, where they’ll do their share to support the local economy. We wonder if critics would prefer to have all the bus riders driving their own cars and trucks, further clogging up roadways and compounding traffic congestion.

Like those in the private sector, government employees deserve a decent place to work. It helps nobody to put workers in substandard quarters, and the designers, builders and financers of the new transit center struck just the right chord in creating the facility that now graces the northern entrance of Riverstone, just off Seltice Way.

Well done to all the collaborators.

And riders, here’s to you.