$48 million wasted on Transit Center boondoggle

Channel 9 I-Team exposes one of the City's biggest boondoggles. "The Riverfront Transit Center opened in 2003. Eight years later, it sits empty and padlocked roughly 275 days every year."

Former Cincinnati mayor Charlie Luken calls the Riverfront Transit Center the biggest waste of money he's seen in his long political career.

"The only reason there's not more outrage about it, " Luken said, "is because people don't know it's there."

Mayor Luken helped open the transit center eight years ago. He inherited the station from previous administrations.

"It will be used by charter buses, public transit, school buses and shuttles for many years to come," Luken told the assembled dignitaries at the ribbon cutting.

His words would not ring true in the eight years after that day in 2003.

Now the former mayor wishes he never stood at the podium and sang praises for what is essentially an empty facility that cost taxpayers $48 million.

"We're eight years out, and nothing's happened, and for the foreseeable future, nothing's going to happen; so we are perfectly safe in saying that this was a waste of money," Luken said.