America’s Sorriest Bus Stop: Atlanta vs. Asheville

4:42 PM EDT on July 22, 2016

What makes a terrible bus stop? The absence of sidewalks, a place to sit, and shelter -- that's all part of the recipe. What else can DOTs and transit agencies throw into the mix?

We've seen a few varieties of awfulness in this year's "Sorriest Bus Stop in America" competition. Earlier this week, a bus stop in Hillsboro, Oregon, overcame a stop on a dangerous San Francisco street to move on to the second round. Today's match also pits two different kinds of sorry bus stop against each other.

Atlanta

This entry is in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. Submitter Ryan Liu writes:

The vast majority of bus stops in the Atlanta area are single marker signs like this one, ones that just say "MARTA Bus Stop" and a phone number to call. No routes, no information. However, this stop is in one of the richest and most urbanized areas of City of Atlanta, Buckhead. This bus stop luckily is located on a sidewalk, but there is no reason the sign for it has to be this pitiful and short. This stop serves a major intersection for the only route that heads north out of the City. Why is the sign so close to the ground? It makes waiting there demoralizing and sad.

Agencies in charge: MARTA, Atlanta Office of Transportation.

Asheville

This stop comes to us from an anonymous reader, who writes:

Nice bus stop in a ditch between Asheville NC and Black Mountain on 5-6 lane US Highway 70. Ridership has been so bad that the route is being reduced significantly. Maybe because the bus stops are in a ditch? This is route 170 served by Asheville Transit.

Agencies in charge: North Carolina DOT, Asheville Transit.

Here is a map of all the candidates so far, with today's matchup in green.