Fayetteville opens transit facility in the works for over a decade

Elected officials and community members on Thursday morning attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Fayetteville Area System of Transit, or FAST.

The project began over a decade ago when former Fayetteville Mayor Marshall Pitts presented the idea to the city council. It’s taken since then for the facility to get off the drawing board and become a reality.

The facility had a soft opening on Nov. 20, when buses from the Fayetteville Area System of Transportation started rolling in.

The 34,000-square-foot facility, which was largely funded by a federal transportation grant, features 16 bus bays and covered passenger loading areas.

The center, which is located one block away from the city’s Amtrak station, will also be home to Greyhound, Southeastern Coach and MegaBus.

Those involved in the project said getting to the grand opening was not easy.

“It’s been a struggle. There was always something wrong, something not right, something not in place,” said Fayetteville City Councilman Chalmeers McDougald. “The soil wouldn’t test right. They had to remove a lot of soil. The steel wouldn’t work, the glass wouldn’t work, the concrete wasn’t thick enough. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.”

With the opening of the FAST facility, Fayetteville will now offer Sunday bus service, which is expected to transport more than 1,200 passengers.

There is already discussion of expanding bus service with additional routes to Fort Bragg, Spring Lake and other parts of Cumberland County.