Inside, at first, it felt like outside.

The automatic sliding doors at the new Apple Valley Transit Station on Cedar Avenue wouldn't stay closed. The cold January air rushed in every time someone walked by.

And then there was the trouble finding a parking spot. The eye-catching station was drawing so many bus riders that all 750 spaces filled up right away.

And so, less than two months after the station opened, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) has been making some fixes and contemplating others.

"We'll continue to work on improvements as we go along," said Will Branning, chairman of the MVTA board and Dakota County Commissioner. "That's a never-ending job."

The station's $21 million price tag included a $1.2 million contingency fund. That money is being used to implement some of the easier fixes.

The doors have been reprogrammed to open more slowly, and switches have been installed so commuters can open or close doors as needed.

Kris Ali, who rides the bus to and from St. Paul each day, said the climate inside the station has already improved. And the doors "are not as sensitive."

The parking question is more complicated.

The number of cars parked at the station daily has dropped since it first opened. When MVTA last counted, 584 of the 750 spaces were occupied. But demand may still exceed capacity.

Branning said some of the initial users likely grew disgruntled with the limited space and chose other park-and-ride facilities.

The station was designed so additional parking decks could be added to the garage. Dakota County will consider that option as it completes an implementation plan update specifying what is needed to launch bus rapid transit on Cedar Avenue in 2012. The plan also will weigh the idea of expanding the platforms at the station, which now can accommodate three northbound buses and one southbound bus simultaneously.

But as of now, MVTA doesn't have the money to expand the platform or to add parking decks.

Robin Selvig, customer service manager for MVTA, said she hasn't heard from customers about any ongoing parking woes at the new station. The old station a block away can be used as an overflow site, but it isn't maintained regularly. After recent snowstorms, it wasn't immediately plowed.

"We had hoped that we wouldn't have to maintain it, so we have not been plowing it on a regular basis," Selvig said. "We've kind of been trying to wait and see what the need was."

The city of Apple Valley's Economic Development Authority owns the old station, just a block away on Gaslight Drive south of 155th Street, and it has been leasing it to MVTA.

Bruce Nordquist, the city's community development director, said future plans call for development on the site, both residential and commercial. But the demand for parking, the old site's usefulness as a staging area for buses, and the sour economy mean development could be a ways off.

"Probably every quarter, we're going to want to be touching base," Nordquist said. "We want to move ahead. We'd already be working on clearing the site by now if we hadn't sensed that need to be more cautious with our approach."

Some bus riders, including Steve Ask, aren't sure just yet whether they like the new station better than the old site. Ask said he's "kind of disappointed" with the new facility -- its design in particular.

"You've got to go down to go over and up," Ask said, noting the disconnect between stairways at the new station. "It actually took less steps at the other place than here."

But Ask, like other riders, was very complimentary of the bus service from the station.

"Excellent," he said.

"You get in and out a lot quicker," said Tara Schiller, of Farmington, who rides the bus to Minneapolis daily. Parking, while tight at first, hasn't been as bad as it was at the old station, where Schiller said she routinely had to park on the street.

"Before, it would get crowded way earlier," Schiller said. "It's definitely helped."

Katie Humphrey • 952-882-9056