Butte bus riders will have problem with new transit center
Butte County bus riders will have a problem when the new Downtown Transit Center on Second Street is completed next month. Jim Peplow, of Butte Regional Transit, said in an e-mail that while the parking arrangement that B-Line buses use at present will be the same, the traditional County buses which park at Second and Normal will have nothing for protection, unlike their city cousins.
Peplow said that the transit center is being planned by the Chico city fathers. It will sport solar panels on the roof, bathrooms, benches, and covered shelters, according to sketches posted on Second Street. He discovered though that passengers riding the route 20 to Oroville and 40 to Paradise, will have no benches or protection as indicated in present plans.
There was an earlier plan that would have parked those buses on Second Street with protection, but that has been scraped. Peplow is in discussions with the planners of the transit center, but does not expect the new plans to change.
As presently designed, the new transit center seems about as useful as costume jewelry. It dazzles and looks to be designed for the politicians to feel good and not for the bus riders to use.