Nail in the Coffin

Press reports suggest City Council tonight will approve the Mortimer Street bus terminal proposed by the Transit Authority.

Renaissance Square offered the commendatory advantage of cloaking a bus terminal within a performing arts center and a college campus.   These comprised the sugar-coating for an otherwise unappetizing pill.

Wishful thinking doesn't trump human behavior.   Like it or not, to the people the City wants to be attracting downtown, to spend money in restaurants, shops and places of entertainment, and to get nabbed by red light cameras, a bus station is something those people want to stay away from.   It may be unfair, but it's the reality.

Bring in a bus station and you devalue the immediate area and blight it.

City News opines, "... the large groups of unruly young people who've been congregating on Main Street haven't helped things.  The presumption is that they've either come downtown by bus or are deliberately gathering at bus transfer points - and that they'll simply move to Mortimer Street if there's a bus station there."

Echoing City News, the Democrat and Chronicle says:   "The presence of buses idling, coupled with riders milling about, is a hindrance to creating an inviting Main Street of specialty shops and businesses."

If these are problems, then the newspapers, by their own terms, merely seek to relocate the problem to a different venue.   To a venue where, as City News points out, significant development already is underway, in the form of the redevelopment of the Warner Building, the Michaels Stern Building and the Cox Building.   These are residential projects, one of them high-end.   A bus station will nip that in the bud.   Perhaps even more damaging, it will tell potential downtown investors: "Make an investment here and we'll put in something next door to kill it."

If "riders milling about" and "groups of unruly young people" are a problem on Main Street, then site the venue for transferring buses to a place where it won't harm actual or potential development.   Yet with a whole City to choose from, the Transit Authority and now, perhaps, City Council, want to put the bus terminal where it can kill off development that's actually occurring.

If City Council tonight accedes to the Transit Authority's request, it will just be driving another nail into the coffin of downtown Rochester.