A rider prepares to place their bicycle on the front of a bus at the Rutland Multi-Modal Transit Center on Thursday, November 14, 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

The Marble Valley Regional Transit District — which operates Rutland County’s main public transportation, The Bus — is relocating Wednesday due to ongoing health and safety concerns at the state-owned Rutland Transit Center.

For the past five years, the transit district has urged the Vermont Department of Building and General Services to maintain the “basic safety and sanitation standards of the lease agreement,” but no substantial and lasting improvements have been made at the center, according to a letter signed by the transit district’s Executive Director Jade McClallen and Board of Commissioners Chair Devon Neary.

“The conditions within and surrounding the Transit Center have deteriorated to such a degree that (the Marble Valley Regional Transit District) leadership are compelled to take immediate action to protect the health and well-being of its employees and riders,” McClallen and Neary wrote. “The facility, in its current state, is not only a public health risk but a liability that undermines broader efforts to revitalize downtown Rutland.”

In the letter sent to Gov. Phil Scott, the head of the Department of Building and Grounds, the Agency of Transportation and the Rutland City mayor, McClallen and Neary urged the state to assume responsibility for rehabilitating the Rutland Transit Center for public use.

With the support of the Rutland City leadership and the Vermont Agency of Transportation, the transit district will maintain public transportation services at the Rutland Amtrak train station parking lot in the interim, according to the letter.