To the editor:

I am writing in response to the proposed bus shelter at the Iowa State Center parking lot.

I use ISC parking every day, and I know it can get really cold waiting for a bus.

The parking lot is completely exposed, so there is nothing to block the wind in any direction.

There is a need for a bus shelter there, but the need is now, not in the summer of 2001.

The shelter should be small, with a roof, walls and doors and a capacity of no more than 70 people; 20 feet square should be more than adequate.

Add-on luxuries would include seats (although wooden benches are quite satisfactory, so long as they are dry) and maybe a heating system.

The price tag for something like this at any local hardware or farm equipment store would be $10,000-$20,000.

The price tag on the proposed shelter is outrageous.

For a quarter of a million dollars, I would expect a fully heated and carpeted bus terminal, not a place to shelter the wind for at most 10 minutes (or 15 minutes during the vacations).

What we will get instead for this money is a disrupted parking lot and no shelter for a year and a half.

We will get fewer parking spaces, a telephone and vending machines that can’t be used because food and drink are not permitted on CyRide.

Sounds like an expensive telephone to me.

Gary Turner

Graduate student

Astronomy