Downtown transit is too important to handle this badly. But Boise is a Downtown divided, as business owners and local agencies squabble over where to build - or where not to build - a transit center.

Making a farcical situation even worse, the project is racing against time. The Valley could lose $3.2 million of a $9.6 million federal earmark if a location isn't chosen.

Forgive us for dusting off an overused movie catchphrase, but failure is not an option. It shouldn't be too much to ask elected leaders and Downtown business owners to agree on a site, before $3.2 million slips through the community's fingers.

If we can't pull that off, then maybe we should stop deluding ourselves. Maybe we don't really want a good Downtown transit system, despite all of our rosy feel-good rhetoric to the contrary.

In theory, at least, the Downtown transit center should be a draw. By focusing bus stops and bus parking in one location, the center should provide a focal point for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and attract shoppers and Downtown workers.

Isn't that a good thing?

Evidently not, judging from the pushback. Property owners have lobbied against the transit center Plan A: an off-street location at 11th and Idaho streets. Neighboring businesses are no happier with Plan B: an on-street location on 10th Street between Main and Bannock streets.

We've all heard of NIMBYs - the "Not In My Backyard" critics. Meet their cousins, the NOMBs: "Not On My Block."

They worry that a transit center will bring everything from noise and vehicle exhausts to vagrancy and crime. Said Scott Schoenherr, a manager representing the owners of the Boise Place building near the 11th Street site, in a pointed November letter to Mayor Dave Bieter: "Transit centers are a hub for downtown activity, and not all of it is good."

The business backlash challenges a central belief of Bieter's City Hall. Bieter believes public transit will kick-start private development, an experience borne out in other cities.

That is why Bieter remains committed to a steel-wheeled Downtown trolley, a system that could link up with the transit center, if it ever gets built. As the theory goes, retailers and professional offices would gravitate toward a permanent trolley line, in order to take advantage of foot traffic. The trolley is as much a vehicle for economic development as it is a method of mass transit.

We agree with this theory. We also recognize that business property taxes may well wind up shouldering the costs of a trolley system. If business owners are fighting against the transit center, what does this say for business support of Downtown transit, in any form?

Facing this criticism, local officials seem to be making up their plan as they go. They have shifted attention from 11th Street to 10th Street. They have attempted to soothe 10th Street business owners, assuring them that an on-street center will not force a road closure. It feels like a rushed process, driven by a Sept. 30 deadline to obligate $3.2 million from the feds.

What a mess. And it didn't have to be this way. The transit center has been in the talking stages for years. Sen. Mike Crapo corralled an earmark for the project in 2005. The clock is ticking now, but there is still ample time for local leaders to dig in, work late, choose a site and get rolling.

One thing's for sure. The last thing we need is to ask Crapo to pursue a second deadline extension from the feds, to further procrastinate and study. Let's hammer this out.

This is a community reality check. We talk in the abstract about the virtues of public transportation - about how transit can ease gridlock, improve air quality and create neighborhoods where people can walk to their workplace or their favorite restaurant.

It sounds good to us. But, as a community, do we really believe our own talking points?

"Our View" is the editorial position of the Idaho Statesman. It is an unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Statesman's editorial board.