Greyhound's 'Sidewalk Station'.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (RAN Sept. 18, 2007): Greyhound bus rider Holly Cabell did not specify a particular building when she said insurance would most likely cover Greyhound's cost of providing alternate space in the aftermath of a Sept. 6 fire at the bus line's Eugene station. Her comments were mischaracterized in a story on Monday.

Since a fire at the Eugene Greyhound station on Sept. 6, thousands of travelers have been faced with a gum-pocked sidewalk, 11 feet of bench and a pair of portable toilets as their bus station lobby.

And hundreds more are likely to pass through in coming days before an estimated $600,000 in damage can be repaired and the scheduling and ticketing systems can be restored. Arson is suspected in the fire at 987 Pearl St.

Greyhound is the second-biggest provider of city-to-city transportation in and out of Eugene with 362,000 arrivals and departures last year.

Fifteen buses come and go a day, taking passengers to near and distant points north, south and east of Eugene.

"They provide an important transportation link for a variety of people in the community. Not everybody has money to fly," Eugene transportation planning engineer Chris Henry said.

The temporary sidewalk accommodations have forced some weary travelers to wait on top of their baggage on the sidewalk or on a strip of lawn across the street at The Timbers Motel.

The station's four employees are doing the best they can, station agent Rob Henderson said.

They're spending their workday behind a Formica table - also on the sidewalk - selling tickets and ushering travelers aboard the buses.

They're keeping their passenger list in a spiral notebook and using a manual slider to take imprints of credit cards. Passengers pick up their printed tickets at subsequent stops.

Henderson said employees were told that the repairs would be done by late last week. "It takes a lot longer than you think to get contractors coordinated," he said.

By the end of this week, the station's singed bus bays could be reopened and passengers can then take refuge there, a station employee said Sunday.

Despite such assurances, some Greyhound riders passing through Eugene haven't felt too important.

It took the company several days to place portable toilets along the sidewalk waiting room. So travelers went in groups of five to 10 to ask for a bathroom in the motel across the street, said a desk clerk, who declined to give his name.

The motel directed the travelers to the Lane Transit District station, which is three blocks away.

In the first week after the fire, the temperature broke 85 degrees four days out of seven and the sidewalk bus station offered no water to drink - only the acrid smell of burned timber wafting from the bus bays.

A forecast of rain, meanwhile, could compel passengers to vie for the limited amount of overhang or awning space in the vicinity. Henderson said he has canopies on reserve and can have them in place in two to three hours should the rains come.

Holly Cabell, a retired comptroller at the Oregon Research Institute, said she believes that Greyhound should have rented space in the empty building across the street.

"Any business that's burned out, the first thing they do is lease alternate property," Cabell said as she caught a bus to Corvallis.

The sidewalk bus station could leave a bad impression on University of Oregon students who are arriving by bus for school, said Bethel Willocks, an accountant meeting her in-laws at the station.

`It says, `This is a podunk town,' ' she said.

Her husband, Kent, said the problem is that the country won't subsidize buses or rails the way it does airports and cars.

"Why do you think this bus station is so run-down and hasn't been remodeled in decades?" he said.

Greyhound's Dallas-based corporate spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee said the repairs should be done soon.

"Not (in) months. Knock on wood," she said. "Ideally, we could be up and running (this) week."

The 1937 "art modern" station, in fact, was due for a face-lift in October as part of Greyhound's "Elevate Everything" program.

Fire repairs include a new ceiling and fresh paint. The remodeling will bring new tile floors and bathroom upgrades.

"(But) right now the focus is on making the facility operational again, getting the computers up and running, getting the power on," Folmnsbee said.