Construction on the new $50 million bus terminal is officially underway.
Federal, state and local officials dug shovels in the ground on the project during a ceremony Tuesday.
The new one-story, enclosed transit center is being built on a downtown block between Saint Paul Street and North Clinton Avenue. It'll include 30 bus bays, a new ticket vending machine and electronic displays for departure times.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Senator Charles Schumer says the long-awaited project will provide RTS customers with an updated bus facility they deserve.
"Downtown is coming back. Young people want to live here and businesses are locating here. You put all that together and what do you need? It's the glue to tie all of this together... a great transit center. Now we will have it," Schumer says.
Schumer helped secure $10 million in federal funding for the project. He says he's also working to wrangle $562,000 dollars to convert Saint Paul Street and North Clinton Avenue into two-way streets to help improve traffic.
Mayor Tom Richards says relocating city buses off of Main Street is good new for the development for the Midtown site.
"This is a step that we needed to finish in order to get the vision of downtown in place. We're real, real happy to see it [transit center] here," Richards explains.
The project is expected to create 400 construction jobs and 50 new jobs - when the transit center opens in the middle of 2015.