Shelters for riders waiting for the T could start popping up around Lawrence by midsummer, officials said Tuesday.

Karin Rexroad, the city’s transit administrator, told the Public Transit Advisory Committee that site plans for 15 new bus shelters are nearly finished. The city must obtain easements at several sites and will ask for construction bids next month.

Lawrence’s transit system has been without shelters for its passengers since the first bus rolled in December 2000.

“Slowly but surely we’re getting there,” Rexroad said. “But I can tell you when they go in, they’re going in right.”

Rexroad said the city has a budget of $1,500 per site, mainly for concrete work, but that most of the sites around the city will need little new concrete. The money comes from a mix of state and federal funds.

A 16th shelter will have to wait, Rexroad said. Plans call for a bus shelter at Kmart, 31st and Iowa streets, but upcoming major road improvements connected to the construction of a Home Depot at the intersection will delay the shelter there.

Meanwhile, Rexroad said efforts to create a central bus terminal were proceeding slowly. She is waiting for permission to inspect the Santa Fe depot, 413 E. Seventh St., as a possible site. But threatened cuts to Amtrak service may make the depot a poor site, she said.