Summit County is ready to begin construction on a new transit center in the spring, but Newpark developer Jim Doilney is questioning the county’s choice of location. Doilney believes the transit center would better serve the public if it was located across the street in Newpark.

The transit center will be located behind the Sheldon Richins building in the Boyer Research Park. According to Doilney, the southeast corner of Kimball Junction makes more sense due to its proximity to commercial stores and services.

The Head of Summit County Public Works Kevin Callahan said the county looked at the location Doilney suggested and conducted a traffic study. The conclusion of all the surveys and studies was that locating the transit center behind the Sheldon Richins building was the most effective way to manage traffic and centralize the bus hub, he said.

“The purpose of the transit center is to facilitate regional connections,” said Callahan. “Landmark Drive has a much higher traffic capacity than the Newpark roads which become congested. And in the long term, the transit center will be much more centralized if it is located near the Boyer Research Park because that area will be more developed than Newpark.”

Until the Boyer Research Park is fully developed and occupied, the transit center will be another ‘$10 million paper weight’ said Doilney.

“We offered the county land to build the transit center in Newpark, but they had no interest and it seems to be a politically based decision,” he said. “We offered space for a bus waiting area as well and they had no interest in it. That is what made me finally decide to speak out against it. I think the county was afraid that if they built a bus waiting structure in Newpark, people would get used to it and demand that the bus continue to stop there or some kind of transit center remains there.”

One of the county’s main goals behind expanding the bus services and creating a transit center in Kimball Junction is to decrease traffic on State Road 224, said Callahan, adding that the chosen location would be the most effective at intercepting commuters before they get on the highway.

“The transit center will have about 100 parking spots. For major events, we will work with existing parking areas to provide additional parking instead of building and maintaining a separate parking lot just for a few occasions a year,” added Callahan.

The Kimball Junction transit center is expected to be completed in 2014.