Merged transit agencies on the move
The Washington County Transportation Authority moved from West Chestnut Street to temporary offices on North Main earlier this year during a cold snap in the dead of winter. When the authority relocated to its permanent home at the new transit hub at 50 E. Chestnut St. on Aug. 15, the weather was nearly 90 degrees and humid.
“We went from one extreme to the other,” said transportation authority Executive Director Sheila Gombita, just before she and Joe Thomas, fixed-route transit coordinator, headed outside of the new building to check the lay of the land in the new park-and-ride lot envisioned for those commuting to Pittsburgh.
Their occupancy of the building is so recent that websites for Washington City Transit and what has become its umbrella organization, the Washington County Transportation Authority, still list City Hall on West Maiden Street and 190 N. Main St., respectively, as the agencies’ locations.
Longtime Washington residents may still think of the site as the place where the Bassettown parking garage stood until it was razed for what transportation wonks call the intermodal transit center, a $3.7 million project built primarily as an outgrowth of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act designed to provide jobs during the Great Recession.
Intermodal transit refers to a facility where different modes of transportation share municipal-owned space to ease connections from one vehicle to another.
Moving there is a work in progress.
Boxes need to be unpacked, furniture for an indoor waiting area has not yet arrived and the elevator of the two-story building is still swathed in padding to protect it from the rigors of hauling desks, tables and chairs.
For the time being, bus stops remain on the parallel North Main and North College streets. The change won’t occur until the furniture arrives for the waiting area, perhaps closer to a late-September invitation-only grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Signs at the transportation authority’s temporary quarters direct visitors to the customer service desk at 50 E. Chestnut between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. The transportation authority has a call center for those who book trips as part of the Washington Rides shared-ride program, but Gombita said a surprising number of people prefer to visit in person to fill out paperwork or pick up copies of fixed-route schedules, still known as the Freedom Line between McDonald and Washington by way of The Meadows Racetrack & Casino and Tanger Outlets. Other routes continue to operate under the City Transit banner.
“A lot of people feel the need to come in,” Gombita said.
New buses for the Freedom Line have been ordered to replace the black and gold ones that have been seen on area streets since 2011. City Transit and commuter service from Washington to Pittsburgh use buses that are white and lime green, but the merged agencies have not been “rebranded” under a unifying color combination. “It will take a little bit longer to phase that stuff in and figure out what we want to do,” Gombita said.
The Washington Parking Authority will also have an office in the new building, and parking meter parts have been moved to the garage.
Despite the lack of a state budget, Gombita said the state’s Medical Assistance Transportation Program, which relies on private vehicles, shared-ride and fixed-route service, remains operational.