Don’t move plaza

A brouhaha stirs the downtown business community over the presence of the centrally-located bus plaza. After years of planning to upgrade this facility and receiving funding to do so, instigators want to relocate the plaza to the fringes of downtown – at great inconvenience to bus users. Their motive to keep “undesirables” out of sight of shoppers and tourists is self-serving.

The fervor over the plaza’s “place” in downtown has been covered in this newspaper’s letters to the editor. Writers are compassionately opposed to relocation. I am, too.

Yes, bad behavior by some bus users requires enhanced security. In my weekly, five-year volunteering at the plaza I have witnessed the professionalism of the STA staff, security and maintenance – everyone involved is doing their best to make the city’s top notch public transportation system service safe.

Nighttime is not as user-friendly at STA. OK, neither is Riverfront Park after dark. Are those advocates for moving the plaza away from the downtown core going to promote relocating the park out of the heart of Spokane, too?

And what about the skywalk system? Its role facilitating movement throughout downtown is essential to the bus plaza – in its current location. Keep it there.

Tina Wynecoop

Colbert