From TRANSIGHT:
Since 2006 the City of Bend and Cascades East Transit (a division of Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council) have operated a local and regional bus system with local service operating as a “hub and spoke” system, with the Hawthorne Station as its hub. During this time the transit center has added and consolidated additional transit services and incrementally expanded its operations at this site, which is currently the only transit facility supporting bus staging and transfers in Bend.
As the regional need for transit service grows, pressure on the hub at Hawthorne Station will become more acute. This analysis concludes that the required transportation impact analysis was not conducted when the transit station was initially approved by the City of Bend; the station layout does not include the key design and layout elements that support a safe station; it is not fully ADA accessible along Hawthorne Avenue; it is located outside of a comfortable walking distance from the downtown; and based on discussions with adjacent businesses creates an undue burden on the adjacent commercial and single- family residential zones. The site itself is inadequate in location, size, and design to support expanded operations—a conclusion underscored by the transit center’s use of City streets (a Collector and an Arterial) for the staging, loading and unloading of buses, which appears to be the only such station with
this layout within the state of Oregon.
This report identifies the background process and decisions that followed the City’s initial siting of the Hawthorne Station, including the lack of a transportation impact analysis when formally established; safety and design concerns of the facility; and recommendations for immediate and necessary resolutions to the safety, functionality and viability issues of Hawthorne Station.
Ultimately, I conclude that service in Bend has effectively outgrown this current location and new facility site(s) must be determined before transit operations can grow further. Based on field review and literature review of transit center siting and facility criteria, the following issues were identified surrounding the transit center and have formed the basis of this opinion:
• The City of Bend approved Hawthorne Station without a transportation impact analysis of bus operations. On May 4, 2010, COIC submitted a land-use application to convert the former Cascade Natural Gas building into administrative offices and a transit hub, but no analysis was conducted of the impact intermodal buses, local buses, taxis and other transit-related operations would have Hawthorne Station Review
Page 2 on the surrounding transportation system and land-uses. The application describes the effect of the transit station as “negligible.” The application was approved 20 days later by the City of Bend.
