Some current and former Danville Mass Transit employees joined local leaders Thursday for the dedication of the new Richard Brazda Bus Terminal. The new downtown facility will serve as the main transfer zone for riders on DMT busses. The $3.4 million dollar complex is located at the corner of North and Hazel Streets.
Danville Mass Transit Director Lisa Beith says the facility has some unique features. ‘’Some of the unique features about this building are the rain gardens – which collect the rain from the downspouts on the roof and bring the water directly into the plantings all around the facility. (It’s) not just in the rain gardens, but in the entire facility. We have a solar component – so solar is helping to power part of the electricity in our facility, and we’re very grateful for that because that’s a cost savings to everyone,’’ added Beith.
And Beith notes special features for traffic flow were also built into the new terminal, ‘’which means our drivers are able to come in and leave independently. There’s no waiting for the bus ahead of you. You can come and go whenever you’re ready to do so. And we have assigned berths where people can find their route. And there’s a lot of technology that helps us with the signs which tell us where the particular bus will be loading and what time.’’ And another new feature coming soon will allow people with smart phones to know exactly where their bus is along its route.
The complex is named after former Danville Mass Transit Director Richard Brazda, who says one of the key goals during his tenure was to expand service. ‘’So we have service now – obviously for quite a while now – but we put in the service to Champaign and to Georgetown, and also out to Lynch Road,’’ says Brazda. ‘’And we also expanded the hours to go into 9 o’clock in the evening so there’s service to the Community College until most of the classes are over – and things like that,’’ says Brazda. ‘’So we tried to hit all of the important things that we could, reasonably, in developing ridership.’’
The new terminal is seen by many as a nice new addition to Downtown Danville. It was built with funds provided by the Federal Transit Administration, Illinois Department of Transportation, and Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.
