MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) — This spring, Murfreesboro residents will have new ways to get around the city and beyond.
City leaders began to answer that call for transportation options by officially rolling out the Murfreesboro Rover Public transportation system in 2007. Now, the city looks forward to opening a new transit center in the spring.
“As that system has grown, we’ve identified the need for a new transit center that will basically serve as the hub,” Sam Huddleston, Assistant City Manager, said.
In April, the city is on track to unveil its new $17.1 million dollar transit center, moving from Burton Road to a more centralized location at 324 New Salem Highway. The new three-building complex will serve several transit needs.
“They [will] bring riders back to the hub. We’ll have a transfer hub that allows riders to move to different routes by changing buses at that hub, and then the buses go back out,” Huddleston explained. “We needed more space to do that. We needed a better facility to do that. Finally, we needed a home for our Transit Authority.”
While the roughly 2,000 square foot bus pavilion will serve riders, a nearly 3,000 square foot building next door will handle all bus maintenance in addition to a massive 10,855 square foot administration facility.
Residents who work outside of the county could also benefit from the new transportation hub. A spokesperson told News 2 that WeGo is in the early stages of purchasing a property next to the new center to connect riders to Davidson County.
“That would allow a rider or user of WeGo to maybe start the first leg of their trip and the last leg of their trip on Murfreesboro transit [and] use the park-and-ride facility or bus-and-ride facility that WeGo has talked about at that location,” Huddleston said. “That gives us some regional significance into that Nashville market.”
To fund the transit center, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) selected Murfreesboro to receive three grants totaling $9 million. That’s in addition to $2.8 million matched by the city.
