Slated for arrival
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on May 27, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Darren Blount finishes laying brick on the outside of the transfer center, which is expected to be completed by late August.
Goldsboro's new 4,800-square-foot transfer center on Carolina Street is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 25. The project, funded in part by a TIGER V grant received from the federal government, will finish three months ahead of the Streetscape project taking place on Center Street.
The neighboring historic Union Station, which sits on the same property as the new transfer center, will not have any work done to it in conjunction with the completion of the project.
A request for funds to rehabilitate the station was included in the city's TIGER V grant application, Assistant City Manager Randy Guthrie said, but funds were not granted by the federal government to rehabilitate the station.
"The transfer center was always going to be a 12-month project completed in August," Guthrie said. "The transfer center and its associated streetscapes in the immediate area around it on Walnut, Carolina and George will be done by August as well."
A permanent fence will be constructed around historic Union Station as the transfer center is completed, Guthrie said. The city has applied for the most recent round of TIGER grants -- the TIGER VII grant -- and a request for funds in the amount of $8.7 million to rehabilitate Union Station was included in the application.
The design of the new transfer center is intended to keep buses operating efficiently and smoothly throughout the day.
"You come in off of Carolina to a saw-tooth pattern where buses can pull up and stop to drop off passengers and then curl around the back," Guthrie said. "You'll have parking in the back for buses and also for some longer buses for things like Greyhound or Trailway type buses for trips to Richmond or D.C. instead of local transit buses."
Work on the center is being completed by 18 total subcontractors, said Project Manager Prentice Uzzell.
Design plans for the center show a large waiting room in the middle of the center -- complete with overhead sky lights -- and two wings that jettison off to the north and south that will be office space for Goldsboro-Wayne Transportation Authority administrative staff.
Guthrie said the new transfer center will act as precisely that -- buses will be maintained, fueled and stored at the city's public works complex.
"This isn't a storage facility, this is just for when they're in service and whatnot," Guthrie said. "They'll fuel up at other locations, and they'll be maintained at other locations. I don't envision -- and this doesn't mean that there won't occasionally be a vehicle stored here overnight, I can't say that -- but we've actually had some discussions with them about where they would park their vehicles in the future, and it will not be this facility."
There are currently discussions to bring in commuter and passenger rail traffic to Goldsboro, but there are no solid plans as of yet. This is one of the reasons the rehabilitation of Union Station was not funded, Guthrie said.
"As far as Greyhound and trains coming in -- there's discussions going on, I know we've had discussions in the past but that was before this was under construction, and so there will be further discussions," he said. "As far as the train service goes, it is a bigger issue between the commuter rail and various types of rail -- the passenger rail or the commuter rail -- that could take you down to downtown Raleigh or whatnot, and those are in various stages of analysis and investigation, but there's not a commitment at this time to bring them in, hence just the transfer center work occurring. There are efforts being made to look into that option, but there's no set timeframe where we could say 'next year at this time trains will be coming in.' It's not set up like that. But there's been discussions off and on. I've been here 11 years, and it's come up off and on throughout my 11 years."
Guthrie said once the center is completed in August, a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held to mark the opening of the transfer center.