The question came from Bend resident Kathy Graham.

Concerning the planned west-Bend site of Oregon State University’s Cascades Campus, she suggested a rush to completion left citizen concerns ignored and brushed off.

As she phrased it, had the “train … already left the station?”

OSU has purchased 10 acres at the corner of Chandler Avenue and 14th Street, and is in the process of buying a contiguous 46 acres to create the central campus that could easily grow over the decades into an independent, four-year university in Bend.

Graham’s question was asked at an OSU community forum, and it prompted a remarkably candid and succinct answer from Matt Shinderman, co-chair of the Campus Expansion and Advisory Committee.

Sit down before you read this, because here comes unvarnished candor.

“For all intents and purposes, yes.”

Shinderman, you are man after my own heart, but let me try to complete the answer:

The train, or should I say railroad lines, left the station decades ago.

Bend in general — and the west side in particular — has been an incubator of growth long before the vast majority of us moved here.

I don’t know the birth point of this phenomenon.

Some have suggested it started with a regional hospital, or a better airport, or the boom and excellence of Central Oregon Community College.

Others date it to the visionaries of Mt. Bachelor, or those who realized that a riverside, down-at-the-chops mill town in an exquisite mountain setting had a future, not just a past.

The campus will be on the west side of the city, which, no one denies, brings challenging questions, as it would in any location. And they need to be addressed.

But what’s the option: A city with no questions, or challenges? Does such a place exist?

The two concerns most frequently raised are increased traffic and the behavior of rowdy students.

On the subject of traffic, have the critics considered that the future build-out of the west side that is already permitted might dwarf the college’s impact?

To accommodate developments like Broken Top, Awbrey Glen, Awbrey Butte, NorthWest Crossing (including its commercial center), Shevlin Commons, Tetherow, etc. etc., we expanded Mt. Washington Drive and built a bridge across the Deschutes River.

We approved a Safeway and a Bend Memorial Clinic on this side of the river, as well as restaurants, offices, a growing national brewery and even a newspaper’s headquarters.

And we built public schools to serve this population, not to mention voting bonds to expand COCC.

So, what new train is leaving the station?

Certainly, it’s not growth, traffic or congestion.

It must be those rowdy students.

No doubt, they will be there, loud and obnoxious, but, mercifully, relatively few in number.

Far and away, the greater number will be striving to get a good education at an institution that will also bring cultural, intellectual and economic benefits to all of us.

And maybe someday, with the benefit of an OSU education, they will buy a home in Bend — even on the west side — and hope that their kids will have job opportunities that draw them home.

That said, the questions about impact are good ones.

Student housing, one that is not often mentioned, is at the top of my list.

But like other good questions, they should be seen as challenges on the way to a once in a multigenerational opportunity, not obstacles.

As we have over decades, it’s a train for which we ought to clear the tracks.

Editor’s note: This article has been modified. In the original article, Matt Shinderman’s name was misspelled. The Bulletin regrets the error.

John Costa is editor-in-chief of The Bulletin.

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. In the original version, Matt Shinderman’s name was misspelled. The Bulletin regrets the error.