KFDA
By Sydnee Batzlaff
Published: Nov. 9, 2022 at 3:58 PM GMT-7

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - After years in the works, the City of Amarillo is moving forward on a new transportation project.

The Multimodal Transportation Center will be used for the City of Amarillo, but also other entities can use it as well.

“Connectivity is really important and this is what we’re providing with this new terminal not only for us, but for Greyhound, Panhandle Transit, everybody would have an opportunity to really benefit from this and enhance everything that we’re doing locally for public transportation,” Chris Quigley, transit director, City of Amarillo.

The city says the need for this center is great.

“We needed a central hub where all of the buses could collect to where the public can utilize those hubs as a transfer station moving from say, for instance, if you’re on an east-west route and you need to go north-south, the ability to switch and move around like you could do here in this facility doesn’t currently exist in the city,” said Jerry Danforth, director of facilities, City of Amarillo.

Quigley says after looking through the transit feasibility study it showed they needed a better facility.

“This current facility that we’re in right now, we don’t have any opportunity to really enhance the safety and security for passengers, we have limited space for our buses and customers, we don’t have the opportunity to be in-person and provide good customer relations for our passengers, so this is a big deal for us,” said Quigley.

It will be located at the corner of 6th Street and Bowie Street.

“We’re also going to be upgrading the two streets that attach to this because of the bus traffic and the turning radius’s and stuff like that and we’re going to be looking at building two concrete roads right next to this, so that the durability of this facility, we’re probably looking at 30-40 years before we have to address anything on it,” said Danforth.

The existing Rails to Trails will also connect to the center.

“The bridge that you see on 6th Street coming in there at Bowie, the existing Santa Fe Railroad bridge will be an extension of the Rails to Trails, it’s a one block extension and it will actually download into this facility as well, so people walking or biking or something like that could actually come to here or use this as a destination or a starting point,” said Danforth.

The cost for the center is a little over $8 million.

About 96 percent of it is through federal funding, the rest is through mostly donations.

The goal is for the center to be completed in a little over a year.