photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Residents board buses at the transit stop in the 700 block of Vermont Street on Aug. 18, 2022.

The site selection process for a new bus station in downtown Lawrence has officially begun, the city’s transit office announced in a news release Tuesday.

As the Journal-World has reported, the city’s Public Transit Advisory Committee discussed plans for the site selection and public outreach process in late November. Now, those topics are slated to be discussed as part of the Lawrence City Commission’s first meeting of the new year on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024.

The announcement comes a week before Lawrence Transit’s new Central Station at 2315 Bob Billings Parkway opens for service, as well as when the city’s redesigned bus routes go live.

“Central Station provides a great example of the quality of bus facilities that Lawrence deserves,” Transit and Parking Manager Adam Weigel said in the release. “Our beautiful downtown should have that level of quality, too. The big question is where do we fit those amenities? I’m looking forward to the community helping us figure that out.”

According to Tuesday’s release, the downtown station will require less significant improvements in comparison to Central Station, though. The main elements that have been identified to include in the downtown station’s site design include driver restrooms, individual bus bays, sufficient seating and wind protection, next departure signs and weather protection.

As it stands, the current temporary downtown bus hub — which is located across the street from the Lawrence Public Library — lacks all of those features. Previous attempts to identify a viable permanent downtown location haven’t panned out, which has led to a new approach this time focused on gathering community input through three phases throughout 2024.

In the first phase, a steering committee will be established for the project, which will define the boundary and site selection criteria for the project. In the second phase, that group will identify, solicit and evaluate all possible sites within the boundary against its established site criteria. The third phase will involve ranking and selecting three of those sites for test concepts, then selecting one of those sites for final design.

That process is expected to take place throughout 2024, according to the release, with design and construction work targeted for 2025. More information about the downtown station project is available on the Lawrence Transit website.