Oneonta Officials Celebrate Transit Hub Opening, Capping Years of Downtown Investment
By JULIA DELPOZZOSUNY Institute for Local NewsONEONTA
City officials, state leaders and residents gathered on Tuesday, April 28 to celebrate the long-awaited grand opening of the Oneonta Public Transit hub, a project that city leaders say represents both a new front door to Oneonta’s downtown and the culmination of nearly a decade of urban revitalization work.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony at 47 Market Street, held shortly after 2 p.m. and in the middle of a four-hour community celebration, marked the official completion of Oneonta’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, a state-funded program that has transformed key parts of the city’s core.
Also known as the Market Street Transit Hub project, the OPT hub was funded in part by $3.25 million from New York State’s DRI program. It is the final of seven projects completed under the initiative, originally awarded to Oneonta in 2016 as part of the state’s first round of the Mohawk Valley Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Other DRI projects in Oneonta included the Dietz Lot mixed-use development, the Water Street boardwalk, and a series of Market Street transportation improvements designed to increase pedestrian activity and safety.
“This is really about revitalization, complete revitalization,” declared Oneonta Mayor Dan Buttermann.
The new facility serves as a multi-modal transportation center and welcome hub, housing Oneonta Public Transit and Trailways bus services while improving connections between Market, Main and Water streets. It includes a public parking lot, pedestrian access points, and a stair and elevator tower linking the site to surrounding downtown destinations.
City officials said those features are critical to improving walkability and access across the downtown corridor—a central goal of the broader DRI strategy.
