UPDATE: Cincinnati City Council voted unanimously April 17 to approve the zoning changes necessary for the transit center.
After a long delay, a new transit center serving one of Cincinnati's busiest locations for Metro bus riders looks ready to take another step forward.
Cincinnati City Council's Economic Growth and Zoning Committee today voted to advance to full council zoning changes that will clear the way for the construction of a transit hub in Northside.
Neighborhood groups in Northside have been asking for a bus transfer hub near Knowlton's Corner for almost two decades. The area near the bustling intersection is the second-busiest transfer location in the city behind downtown's Government Square, according to the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, with routes 15X, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23X, 27 and 51 all flowing through the area.
"This is something that the Northside community has been very supportive of and very interested in coming to their community for quite some time," City of Cincinnati Planning Director Katherine Keough-Jurs said today.
Currently, the bus stops near the intersection don't have shelters, and many don't even have bus benches. SORTA wants to oblige the neighborhood's long-standing requests by building eight platforms with open-air shelters, a small rest station for Metro drivers and nine parking spaces for park-and-ride bus riders to serve Metro riders waiting on those buses.
The transit center would have another benefit: taking stops off busy Hamilton Avenue and moving them to nearby parcels of land on the corner of Spring Grove Avenue and Blue Rock Street, easing traffic congestion and perhaps pedestrian safety concerns on a street that has seen a number of pedestrians hit by cars.
SORTA acquired some of the needed parcels several years ago. Another is occupied by a parking lot owned by the Northside Business Association.
The transit authority and Cincinnati-based MSA Design first presented plans and renderings for the transit center in 2016. SORTA said the hub, which will cost about $3.7 million to construct, would be finished by late 2017.
Progress has been slow since. But the plan — which will include moving the Business Association parking lot to SORTA-owned land just to the west of the coming transit station, creating four more spots in the process — is moving forward again.
"SORTA and the Business Association traded land so that there are two suitable sites," Cincinnati Planning Department's Samantha McQueen said, "one for the transit center and one for the parking lot."
The parcels also include an additional 2,500 square feet of space at the northwest end of the site that could be developed into a two-story building in the future.
The shuffle will require a change in zoning to a planned development zoning allowing for the construction of the transit center and commercial community pedestrian zoning for the parking lot. Planning Commission held a hearing about the zoning change in February and says there was no opposition voiced to the plan. The Northside Business Association has drafted a letter in support of the project.
The planning commission approved the zoning changes March 15, which will also require a vote by full Cincinnati City Council.
Should council approve the change, SORTA says construction would begin in early summer this year and conclude early in 2020.
