America’s Sorriest Bus Stop: Boston vs. Nassau County, NY
Our search for the sorriest bus stop in America — a virtual tour of the deplorable waiting conditions transit riders have to put up with — continues today with the third match in the round of 16.
Last week, bus stops in Broomfield, Colorado, and St. Louis County beat out the competition from Portland, Oregon, and Kingsport, Tennessee. There are still many more miserable bus stops to shame. Here are two of them.
Boston
This stop comes to us from a reader, who writes:
It is impossible to safely walk to this bus stop. It is located on a median island surrounded by on- and off-ramps to the Mass Pike (I-90). On the other side is the 5-lane Cambridge Street, which also has no crosswalks and no curb cuts. There is no shelter from the elements & in the winter the snow from the street gets plowed onto the sidewalk & the sidewalk is never shoveled. The MBTA is responsible for the bus stop and MassDOT is responsible for the surrounding roads.
Here’s an aerial view so you really get the gist:
Agencies in charge: Massachusetts DOT, MBTA.
Nassau County
This stop is on a state highway in western Nassau, close the Queens border:
A commenter who goes by “Jason” submitted this one. He says:
This NYC MTA “bus stop” is actually located in Nassau County along Rockaway Turnpike along the Q113/Q114 route to Far Rockaway. When the route is in Nassau, no signs are posted at stops. You just have to kind of know they exist and what buses stop there. Some stops, like this one, have what is left of an old bench.
This stop is on an extremely busy and congested road with no shoulder. The bus must stop in the right lane of fast moving traffic to load & unload. Passengers must remain dangerously close to the traffic at this stop.
Agencies in charge: New York State DOT, New York MTA.
The voting will be open until midnight on Tuesday.
Which bus stop is the sorriest?
- Boston (89%, 967 Votes)
- Nassau County (11%, 117 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,084
Here’s a map of the six bus stops in the competition so far, with today’s matchup in green. Ten more competitors will be revealed before we move on to round two.
The bus stop on Cambridge Street is in the Allston section of Boston, not in Cambridge. The street’s name changes to Allston Street when you cross the bridge into Cambridge. The (very practical) old Massachusetts street naming convention is that Allston Street is the street that goes to Allston, etc.
Finally, choices which both serve numerous destination points. A poor stop in a rural area may not be ideal, but at least not that many people are affected. Anyone trying to go to work at the Doubletree (in the Cambridge example) or Costco is affected by these poor stops.
Actually, the street is called River St. on the Cambridge side of the river. Allston St. Cambridge is a little nothing street a few blocks away, tucked into the neighborhood.
> Anyone trying to go to work at the Doubletree is affected by these poor stops.
Not really. It’s a sorry bus stop along a seldom-used bus route. But only .8 miles from a subway stop, and .3 miles from Western Ave, which is served by a non-sorry bus. Only the severely mobility-impaired would use the #64 bus to get to the Doubletree. In my 15 years in Boston, I never used that bus route even once.
http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/bus/routes/?route=64
In defense of Boston… it is now well understood that Cambridge St. in Allston is an all-around sorry stretch of road that needs to be completely rebuilt, along with the entire Mass Pike interchange. See here for where this is headed, it looks like it could be really nice once it’s done:
https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/8/docs/HighlightedProjects/AllstonInterchange/presentation_bostonredev020316.pdf
Every submission I’ve seen is still quaint compared to this.
To clarify the Nassau County example, the two MTA-affiliated agencies that run the buses in New York City – MTA New York City Transit and MTA Bus Company (there is no such entity as “New York MTA”) – runs the buses but doesn’t maintain the bus stops. Bus stops within New York City are entirely the responsibility of NYCDOT.
Now, this bus stop is outside New York City – which is presumably the source of the problem. NYCDOT, of course, isn’t going to maintain a stop outside of its jurisdiction. And I suppose NYSDOT doesn’t do bus stops at all (at least not those served by MTA Bus – perhaps they have an arrangement with other agencies).
So from a street perspective, this probably isn’t designated a bus stop at all, even if from a bus operations perspective it’s treated as one.
These were both horrible, but the overhead view in Boston makes it a contender to go all the way! Congratulations Boston!
Allston street in C-port is nice, if I remember it right. It’s not a “nothing street”! It has a cool little park or two on it, even…
The key word here is Allston. Yes, it’s part of Boston, but if you asked a local to meet you on Cambridge Street in Boston, he would be a few miles away on a different Cambridge Street in Boston proper.
I would call it criminal neglect.
My personal favorite is the Worcester Regional Transit Agency’s Greendale Mall bus stops: https://goo.gl/maps/4ezuj7BEDP62 and https://goo.gl/maps/RsLUMckTX7D2
Because why not put bus stops in an inaccessible location within the interchange between two highways.
Be aware though that the entire area is being redesigned right now, for pedestrian and bike access.
I don’t know, all examples both in the post and in the comments at least have some form of accessible(ish) sidewalk. How about these lovely examples that drop passengers onto a grassy shoulder with a goat path along the side of the five lane airport access road?
https://goo.gl/maps/iwmyaWriZKs
there have been several people who take the 64 and use that stop to get home show up on reddit. Since the 64 goes to Brighton via Western Ave to SFR, there are lots of workplaces just east of River Street for whom this is the closest stop from their workplace to get home in Brighton. And the 64 goes close to those workplaces when it is going to Central/Kendall.