Stadium bus shelter nears late completion

After a late start and minor construction holdups, new bus platforms and shelters near Memorial Stadium are nearly ready for use.

Work slated to begin in May 2011 was not underway until July, pushing the completion date past the beginning of the new school year and into late September. Now, Oct. 17 is the new start of operations.

“It would have been ideal to have it all done at the beginning of the school year, but it didn’t,” said Perry Maull, operations manager for IU’s Campus Bus Service. “A few more weeks was nothing.”

A specialized bidding process and other requirements came with the use of federal grant money for the project, which delayed the start to mid-summer, IU Landscape Architect Mia Williams said.

Four platforms, or raised sidewalk areas, have been constructed on the west edge of the white parking lot of Memorial Stadium.

Two of the platforms will welcome bus riders as they arrive, and the others house two bus shelters where students will wait for incoming buses.

The new shelters, which are much bigger than current shelters on campus, include translucent roofs, interior light fixtures and display cases. Shelter stonework was given a special chemical coating to make graffiti easier to clean up.

“These shelters will look like nothing else on campus,” Maull said. “We’re looking for replacing the wooden ones on campus. They’ve seen better days. This is a design for the future.”

With new infrastructure comes a new configuration that consolidates old multiple-stadium stops, with both A and X buses meeting at the new platforms.

“Each bus can independently access the platform and pull away without bothering the other buses that are there already,” Maull said.

Buses will now circulate uniformly, entering the parking lot from 17th Street, entering at Gate 6, looping to the platforms and exiting back onto 17th Street.

“I’m hoping there will be less hang-ups in traffic,” Maull said. “We’ll have to see. Plans are one thing, but what happens on the ground is another.”

The completion date moved from late September to mid-October after later-than-expected delivery of various construction components.

“There are too many different components to estimate exactly when it’ll be done,” Maull said. “But now we’re close enough to use Oct. 17 as a start of operations.”

Construction on the platforms and shelters is now complete. The process of telling the contractors what adjustments or changes to make has begun, Williams said. These small alterations will be completed before the new target date.

“We’re pretty close to having it ready,” Maull said. “It’s just these last few pieces to get done. We can’t start using the platforms and shelters until all the construction is complete.”