Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety members Tuesday awarded a bid for concrete work on a new bus stop near NexusPark along Herman Darlage Drive that will serve as a transfer station once it becomes available in the spring.
Board members awarded the bid to Case Construction, after the Edinburgh-based contractor submitted the low bid out of four opened last week at $46,751.
When bids were initially read off, City Engineer Andrew Beckort had Case Construction’s bid at a whopping $8.7 million, which he said was likely a typo at the time. After reviewing Case’s quote form, engineering found the bid was $46,751.
The construction of the bus stop itself will come in tandem with changes the transit department is making to the ColumBUS system starting on March 23 when the city will transition from routes to a color-coded loop system. The transit department is also relocating transfer stations and making changes to existing routes as part of the revamp.
Bus routes will become the Blue, Green, Purple and Orange loops. People can get a preview of the new loops at: columbus.in.gov/columbus-transit/loops-preview/.
Transit will also connect Walesboro and Taylorsville to the ColumBUS network starting on April 6.
In addition, the transfer station at Target will move to NexusPark, Stop & Wave pickups will end and the Blue Loop will begin offering two split routes with service to the AirPark and Southern Indiana Orthopedics that will alternate every hour.
Concrete work on the new bus stop will be done by March 20, but there may be some additional lighting work that will need to be wrapped up into the first couple days of April, city officials said.
The city previously partnered with students from IU’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program who designed the bus shelter that’s been at the location for about a year.
The bus shelter — paid for through a $15,000 grant from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), along with funding from Heritage Fund and the city, among others — is made of bent-plate steel and perforated with glass with ceramic threading. It also features a pattern of Dancing Cs that follows the map of rivers that go through Columbus.
