City and university leaders may be tempted to go back to the drawing board after an application for a $15 million federal grant to build a transit hub on KU’s campus was rejected. That would be a mistake.

Leaders have doodled long enough. It is time to build the key piece of infrastructure for the city and university’s bus systems.

Instead of going back to the drawing board, city and University of Kansas leaders should go back to a site that received a strong recommendation from transit professionals: 22nd and Iowa streets.

Voters overwhelmingly approved a pair of sales taxes to fund the transit system in 2008. But those sales taxes had a provision the taxes would sunset in 10 years. The only way the taxes can continue is if voters approve them again in a citywide election. It would be prudent if the city scheduled that election for the fall of 2017, in order to give the city time to adapt if voters reject the taxes.

The City Commission ought to be concerned about having the transit system operating as efficiently as possible before that vote. Transit leaders have said they are hamstrung in improving routes and service times with the current system because they do not have an adequate hub for buses to converge and allow for transfers.

The 22nd and Iowa site has several positive attributes: It is located near the KU campus, the primary driver of traffic on the transit system; the land is vacant, owned by KU Endowment and available for city use at a very low cost; and it is located along Iowa Street, the most important north-south route in the city.

The site also does not directly abut a single family neighborhood, although there is one to the east that is close. Neighbors in that area have expressed concern about a transit hub. That’s understandable, but any location near the campus faces that issue. Leaders should deal with the issue at the 22nd Street site now rather than spend months looking for another site.

That vacant lot will develop someday, and a transit hub may be a better fit than some other projects. The city and university have complete control over how the buses operate and where they travel. The same can’t be said of the vehicles of tenants of an apartment complex that could build on the site, for example.

Commissioners also should focus on the issue at hand. Some residents and commissioners expressed concern the 22nd and Iowa site wasn’t a “destination” type of site. That’s a red herring. Users of a transit hub don’t care whether there is retail shopping at the hub. They usually only are waiting for a minute or two to make the transfer to their next bus. And even if they did, the site is essentially a block away — just a couple minutes walk — from a retail area at 23rd and Iowa.

Arguably, the city could just put the whole project on hold, with the idea that it might as well wait and see if the public will renew the sales tax funding for the system. That would short shrift an important public service.