Council Member Aisha Muhammad asked colleagues Tuesday night to authorize a formal transit feasibility study for Riverside Heights, arguing the river district was explicitly promised consideration when the council approved its $86 million bus rapid transit corridor and has waited long enough to see it delivered.
Muhammad, who represents District 3, told the council’s public works committee that residents of Riverside Heights have grown impatient watching Cedar Hollow’s transit feasibility study move forward while her own district’s promised study remains unfunded. “We were told, on the record, in this chamber, that Riverside Heights was next in line,” Muhammad said. “I’m not asking for a bus tomorrow. I’m asking the city to keep its word and start the paperwork.”
The request traces back to the council’s 5-2 vote approving an $86 million rapid-bus corridor linking West Bellwater to Foundry Row and Downtown Core. During that debate, Council President Walter Kowalczyk told colleagues the corridor was “the first” transit investment the city had finished funding, not the last, and both Cedar Hollow and Riverside Heights were named as likely candidates for the next round.
A promise, unevenly kept
Beatrice Colón, a 34-year Riverside Heights homeowner who spoke during public comment, said her commute to a Downtown Core medical office takes 50 minutes each way on two buses that rarely arrive on schedule. “Cedar Hollow got its study because Councilman Petrowski pushed for it right away,” Colón said. “We were told to wait our turn. Nobody told us the turn would take this long.”
City Manager Marcus Whitfield said the sequencing reflects available grant funding rather than favoritism. Cedar Hollow’s study, he said, is being paid for through a state transportation planning grant that required an application before a certain deadline, and his office moved quickly once Council Member Gary Petrowski flagged the opportunity. A Riverside Heights study, by contrast, would need to be funded through the general fund or a future grant cycle.
This isn’t about which district we like better. It’s about which application landed on my desk first with a deadline attached. I understand why that distinction doesn’t feel satisfying to a resident standing at a bus stop, but it’s the honest answer.
Marcus Whitfield, Bellwater City Manager
Council divided over sequencing
Council Member Gary Petrowski, who represents Cedar Hollow, said he sympathized with Muhammad’s district but pushed back on the idea that the two studies should be treated as a zero-sum contest. “My constituents waited a decade for anyone to take our transit needs seriously,” Petrowski said. “I’m not going to apologize for getting our study funded. But I’ll vote to fund Riverside Heights’ study too, the moment there’s a source of money on the table.”
Council Member Luis Bettencourt, whose Foundry Row district benefited most directly from the rapid-bus corridor, said he would support directing unspent contingency funds from that project toward a Riverside Heights study if the numbers allow it. Whitfield’s office is reviewing whether roughly $180,000 in construction contingency, set aside in case of cost overruns on the corridor’s Downtown Core segment, could be repurposed once that phase is further along.
Kowalczyk, who presided over the meeting, said he wanted staff to return within 60 days with options rather than let the debate simmer through another budget cycle. “We made a specific promise in this room,” he said. “I don’t love the idea of Riverside Heights residents thinking we only meant it for the meeting where it was politically convenient.”
Riverside Heights, a mixed-income neighborhood along the river that has absorbed both newer condominium construction and longtime working-class households, has historically split its commuting patterns between downtown office jobs and Foundry Row’s growing biotech offices, according to figures Whitfield’s office compiled at Muhammad’s request. That mix, Muhammad argued, makes the district a particularly strong candidate for a transit investment that could serve both groups of commuters at once, rather than favoring one at the expense of the other. “This isn’t a study for one kind of rider,” she said. “It’s a study for a neighborhood that sends people in every direction for work every single morning.”
Whitfield said a full study, if funded, would likely examine several questions before any route is proposed, including:
- Projected ridership along the riverfront corridor connecting Riverside Heights to Downtown Core
- Whether a spur line off the existing rapid-bus corridor is more cost-effective than a standalone route
- Estimated construction and annual operating costs
- A rough timeline for design, funding and construction phases
Muhammad said she would bring a formal budget amendment to the full council within the month directing staff to identify a funding source, rather than waiting for contingency dollars that may not materialize. “I’d rather ask for the money directly than hope for leftovers,” she said. “Riverside Heights residents have been patient. Patience isn’t the same thing as being forgotten, and I intend to make sure it doesn’t become that.”
The public works committee took no formal vote Tuesday, but agreed to place the question on the full council’s agenda next month. Whitfield said his office would present a menu of funding options, including a possible partial appropriation that would fund preliminary data collection while the city pursues a state grant for the complete study.