Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday voted 4-0 to approve the creation of a steering committee that will help the city pick a spot for an improved downtown bus station.
The steering committee will be charged with setting a boundary for what is considered downtown and developing and applying criteria to evaluate possible sites for the bus station.
Commissioners deliberated for around an hour over who should be included in the steering committee. They eventually decided to approve the committee as it was presented to them by Transit and Parking Manager Adam Weigel.
The goal is for the design and construction of the downtown station to begin in 2025 after a year of planning and evaluation.
“This community has big sustainability and density goals,” Weigel said. “That work requires that some people use shared ride services, not everybody. We’re not here to force everybody to get in the bus and drop their car forever. But if we’re trying to move more people with less space and less space for parking, we have to do that in buses and with coordination of walking and biking and different things.”
The new Lawrence Transit Central Station opened Tuesday at Bob Billings Parkway and Crestline Drive, but five routes still serve downtown. Weigel said that buses averaged 561 daily boardings at Seventh and Vermont streets in 2023.
The proposed downtown station will be of a much smaller scale than the new Central Station, which includes bike storage, seating, WiFi, restrooms, device charging, wheelchair charging, heating and more.
“For more people to use that service, it has to be quality, it’s got to be comfortable,” Weigel said. “It can’t be a sidewalk with one shelter and no indication of when your bus departs. So, that’s the work that we’re trying to advance for the city’s sustainability and density goals.”
The committee will include 11 members and a non-voting chair appointed by the commission. Commissioners approved a committee including one each from the Chamber, Lawrence Public Library, Senior Resource Center for Douglas County, Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, and Downtown Lawrence Inc. The committee will also include a member of the Public Transit Advisory Committee, a bus driver and bus rider, a downtown resident and employee and a member of the general public.
“This is something we need,” Mayor Bart Littlejohn said of the downtown station. “… This has been a ‘temporary’ solution for the last 10 years.”
One concern brought up by commissioners while discussing who should be included on the steering committee was the need for a voice representing community members who are experiencing homelessness.
They agreed it was necessary to include a social services organization such as the DARE (Drop-in And Rest) Center in the process but did not choose to add a representative as a steering committee member.
Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said because the plan for the station will come in front of the city commission again, it would allow for any community members to engage with the plan at that time.
A handful of public commenters spoke on the idea of a downtown station. One of them, Brad Ziegler, owns a business downtown and expressed concerns about the safety of the current downtown bus hub near the library.
Weigel, in his presentation, said that the city has worked to ensure the safety of the buses and bus stations, including implementing a rider suspension policy last June, and it has implemented a code of conduct for the new Central Station.
According to Weigel’s presentation, some downtown business owners had expressed the perception that the buses mainly serve low-income and unhoused community members who are less likely to live, work and shop downtown. But Weigel emphasized that buses serve a wide variety of community members.
“That type of perception exists in a lot of different places,” Weigel said. “So I also think it can come from folks who maybe haven’t been on a bus yet and haven’t seen the breadth of that sort of thing.”
Commissioner Amber Sellers said it was important to encourage steering committee members to speak as representatives for their group, rather than as individuals. She wanted to ensure that members were able to engage with the group inclusively.
Littlejohn, Vice Mayor Mike Dever, Finkeldei and Sellers voted to approve the steering committee makeup. Commissioner Lisa Larsen was absent.
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Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read more of his work for the Times here.
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