2011: A Dedication Ceremony is Held for an Intermodal Terminal Station in Michigan

August 8, 2011

In the Detroit metropolitan area, a newly built intermodal terminal station in the city of Pontiac was officially dedicated. The public officials on hand for this ceremony included Gary Peters, who was the U.S. representative for that region of Michigan at the time and now serves the Great Lakes State as one of its U.S. senators.

Another one of the public officials attending the event was Kirk T. Steudle, who was director of the Michigan Department of Transportation from 2006 to 2018. (In addition, he served as president of AASHTO in 2011-12.) Steudle emphasized the overall benefits of the new Pontiac Transportation Center. “This is an investment in the city of Pontiac and an investment in public transportation,” he said.

This station replaced a facility that had been in operation since 1983. Construction on the current version of the Pontiac Transportation Center began on July 1, 2010. “We believe that transit must be a strong component of economic development in Michigan,” Steudle asserted at the groundbreaking ceremony for this project. “More transit means attracting more investment and more talent to Michigan.” Steudle further noted, “We need transit systems that will relieve congestion, conserve energy, reduce climate change, and create jobs and economic development. And to help support those transit systems, we need attractive facilities that are safe and accessible for all our citizens.”

The present-day Pontiac Transportation Center encompasses approximately 1,400 square feet (130 square meters) altogether. This facility’s key features include not only a spacious indoor waiting room but also canopies outside for passengers in the bus loading area and on the train platform.  

The Pontiac Transportation Center is maintained by MDOT. This transit operations that use this station on a regular basis are the Wolverine, one of the high-speed rail routes run by Amtrak’s Michigan Services; Indian Trails, Inc., an intercity bus company; and the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART), a wide-ranging public transit system in the Detroit metropolitan area.

Photo: Adam Moss (https://www.flickr.com/people/9962140@N02) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

For more information on the current version of the Pontiac Transportation Center, please check out https://www.greatamericanstations.com/stations/pontiac-mi-pnt/