City officials on Tuesday night unveiled plans to build a 1,000-space parking deck and bus station on Third Street near the former Bethlehem Steel Co. property, but probably won’t go ahead with plans until more of the site is developed, according to this story in The Express Times.
The parking will probably not be needed until the former Steel General Office building is rehabilitated and converted into a residential complex. However, city officials said there is a more pressing need for a new SouthSide bus depot for TransBridge and Bieber Tourways, since the current station is dilapidated.
The city is currently sitting on a three-year-old $495,000 federal grant to design the facility, which must be used soon, according to city Community and Economic Development Director Joseph Kelly.
Construction is expected to cost between $17 million and $25 million and would be financed by the Tax Increment Financing district. The plans were presented at a special public meeting hosted at the
[That is, just below the Tally -Ho, where the Comfort Suites presently are... (And please forgive my imprecision, or errors; I don't live in Bethlehem presently.)] And when I would call down, as a student from campus, for a reservation, or to ask about times, I would inevitably, and quickly, get an answer from a young man: "Bethlehem Bus Terminal. Can you please hold?" Actually, before I got personal use of a car, my experience with the old terminal, and in particular the bus company "Trans-Bridge Lines" (as I believe they were termed), was not short of excellent. The service was on time, courteous, and a true express line - stopping only in Easton; therefore proving very worthy for Lehigh and Lafayette students. But this was before the company sold out to the New Jersey Transit Authority (I believe)... and it consequently became no longer necessarily *an express*. It would even occasionally stop at the airport (La Guardia). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We should always remember that change; say "a new building", or a "new way of seeing matters...", or "a new vision"... is not always correct, or good.