America’s Sorriest Bus Stop: Buffalo vs. Rochester

With today’s match, the field of 16 in the running for the title of Sorriest Bus Stop in America has been revealed. Shame on the DOTs and transit agencies that make transit riders trek over dangerous streets to these terrible waiting environments.

The two final bus stops in the competition are outside Buffalo and Rochester — an Empire State showdown.

Buffalo

Express buses serve this stop on Highway 5 in the town of Hamburg, south of Buffalo. It comes from an anonymous submitter, who writes:

I don’t know how you could cross this 55 mph 6-lane highway to get to it, even if you wanted to…

To be fair, the NFTA (Buffalo’s transit agency) does a fairly good job usually. But, the little village governments of the southern suburbs really don’t believe in public transit, so the agency is pretty limited in what it can provide down there.

Agencies in charge: New York State DOT, Town of Hamburg, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

Rochester

This stop comes to us from Jason Haremza, who writes:

This bus stop is part of the Regional Transit System (RTS), the public transit provider for the Rochester, NY region. It is along the edge of Hylan Drive, in the Town of Henrietta, a large suburban municipality just south of Rochester. This stop is in front of a Wegmans Supermarket, and a strip mall with a variety of other stores. The stop, as you can see, is along the public street (Hylan Drive, owned and maintained by Monroe County). The front of the Wegmans store is approximately 450 feet back, behind a large parking lot. There is no pedestrian access from the store to the bus stop, not even a crosswalk painted on the parking lot. Pedestrians, many with groceries, are forced to negotiate through the moving vehicles of the parking lot. Once at the stop, there are no sidewalks or even a paved pad to wait on. Depending on the season, transit riders are forced to wait in the dust/mud/snow.

Henrietta is home to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), approximately 3.5 miles west of this stop and served by the same bus route. With approximately 30,000 students, RIT is the region’s largest institution of higher learning. This Wegmans store is often patronized by RIT students, many of whom are international.

The Town of Henrietta was extraordinarily derelict in it’s duty to review and approve the site plan of this retail development without any apparent consideration for pedestrian access. The developer of the retail development, as well as Wegmans, which makes healthy living a special part of its marketing through the ‘Eat Well, Live Well’ campaign. Despite the campaign specifically noting that “some physical activity is better than none. Get the OK from your doctor, then strap on a pedometer and find out how much activity you regularly do. Gradually add activity over several weeks and build to a goal of 10,000 steps a day” this does not, evidently, mean supporting active transportation. Monroe County Department of Transportation is derelict in not constructing sidewalks along Hylan Drive.

Agencies in charge: Monroe County DOT, Town of Henrietta, Rochester Regional Transit System.

Here’s a map of all the contestants so far, with today’s highlighted in green.

And here is the bracket you’ve been waiting for. Note that the voting is open in the Atlanta vs. Asheville match until midnight tonight.