By James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It opened to limited use last fall and won't be fully in use for another year or two. But today's dedication of the Riverfront Transit Center is more about what the $23 million facility helped do before it was even built and what it can do many years from now.

The new Riverfront Transit Center under Second Street. (Gary Landers photos) | ZOOM |

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The center can handle up to 500 buses and 20,000 people an hour for major events such as Bengals games, Riverfest and the Tall Stacks festival. Several area and national dignitaries will be on hand today to dedicate the center, on Transit Center Way under Second Street.

It also was a key addition to the $236 million Fort Washington Way reconstruction that helped clear even more land for development and provide a transportation hub for the three main riverfront attractions of Great American Ball Park, Paul Brown Stadium and the soon-to-be completed National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

"It's our estimation that 60,000 schoolkids will use the transit center to visit the Freedom Center in its first year alone on school buses," Freedom Center spokesman Ernest Britton said. "This will be one of the major assets for the projected 450,000 visitors we expect for our first year, as well."

By combining several elements of the Fort Washington Way redesign into the transit center, including a new water main and a floodwall that replaced the old levee, valuable development space was opened that can now become a park or the Banks, a proposed retail/office/residential development over Fort Washington Way and along the riverfront.

Its designers also made the center adaptable to either light rail above, on Second Street, or to commuter diesel rail through the center itself. And it was the first time that Ohio's transportation funding panel approved a transit project using Ohio Department of Transportation money.

All that, and it's not bad to look at, either. With its sleek architectural details and hand-crafted tile mosaics that show different Cincinnati icons at the exits to Second Street, the center welcomes visitors with a warm feel, although transit officials hope they won't stay long.

"We really tried to include a comfortable feel, although you'll notice that there are no benches, and the sidewalks are fairly narrow," said Sallie Hilvers, spokeswoman for Metro, which runs the transit center on behalf of the city of Cincinnati. "We want people to keep moving."

TRANSIT CENTER NUMBERS

• Length: 3,540 feet. • Width: 84 feet, 7 5/8 inches. • Tons of concrete: 23,800. • Cost: $23 million. • Number of exits to Second Street: four (more exits on the south side will open as development continues, including the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center). • Number of bus bays: 20 (10 on each side). • Capacity: 500 buses/20,000 people an hour.

One thing that the transit center will not do, at least for the foreseeable future, is handle scheduled bus service either from Metro or from TANK, Northern Kentucky's bus agency.

Hilvers said the Government Square hub would continue as the focal point for regular downtown bus traffic - that area is set to receive at least a $4 million face lift. She said research showed that many regular users of downtown bus service either on Metro or TANK work in the central or northern part of the Central Business District, and dropping them off at Second Street would extend their walk.

"That could actually lead to a decrease in ridership," Hilvers said, adding that the expected daily flow of buses for the Freedom Center would make it more complicated to add scheduled service there.

As for its operational use, Metro now has a central bus-oriented tunnel with individual bays to pick people up and drop them off for big events downtown that agency officials say is much more efficient and safer.

"For the events we've done so far, it has gone much, much better," said Greg Lind, Metro's sector manager of the radio control center. "When we used to stage big events up on the plaza of Cinergy Field, people would just walk in front of moving buses. You don't get that anymore."

E-mail jpilcher@enquirer.com