LATS holds last forum

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - Earlier this year I spoke with LATS general manager Ryan Landers about his master plan for the transit system in the city of Lawton.

The biggest item on his checklist was a new transfer center to help the people of Lawton have one central place to be when transferring from bus to bus and their eyeing the Gore median between 3rd and sixth street.

“The number one reason why we like this is that it is a hundred percent owned by the city of Lawton which means that we can leverage the value of that land to go after federal dollars. That means that there’s less local money from the tax payers that will have to be used for this project,” Landers said.

One of the unique benefits of the property is the openness the area has and that 80 percent of the funding would come from federal grants. Landers says this plan has many benefits for the people of Lawton.

“Well they would actually have a location. Right now its, when I say location an actual physical building that they can be enclosed under. Right now it’s just we have two shelters at our transfer station. You know bathrooms is a big issue right now we have to use the library. If the library is not open there’s nowhere for anyone to go,” Landers said.

With all this coming about, the biggest question is, what’s next?

“So if a location is chosen on Tuesday, the other agenda item that we also have is what’s called a request for qualification. So we go out to vendors to try and get qualifications. Sometime in January from time frame. We hope to actually have responses and hopefully award sometime in February,” Landers said.

Once a vendor is selected the process to create the center will come into fruition, but citizens do you have concerns.

“One of the big concerns is that it’s gonna there’s gonna be traffic build up that we’re just basically gonna stop on gore and traffic buildup and it’s gonna slow traffic down,” Landers said.

The forum will be at 2PM tomorrow at City hall in the city council meeting room so all concerns can voiced and opinions are heard

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