Streetsblog Bus Stop Contest: Vancouver can be the sorriest!

The Streetsblog ‘Sorriest Bus Stops’ contest is down to the final four:

We have a very good chance of being the sorriest:

The Pitt Meadows stop is at the upper left.  Writes Angie at Streetsblog:

Vancouver probably isn’t the first place that springs to mind when you think about sorry bus stops. But this stop, in the suburb of Pitt Meadows about 25 miles outside of Vancouver, is a doozy.

Submitted by Jason Lee, it blew past the Bay Area suburb of San Rafael as well as Beverly Hills in the earlier rounds. The stop is located on Loughheed Highway, which hosts frequent transit service but is clearly very dangerous for pedestrians. There were 33 fatal crashes on the road over the last 10 years, Lee points out.

You can see in the picture the outside lane is reserved for buses. But yikes, you have to be brave to wait there. A spokesperson for the transit agency, Translink, told us that usually bus stop amenities, like shelters, are the responsibly of the local municipality. But that this stop has been flagged internally by Translink as a safety issue. (Lee says he reported it.)

“It doesn’t mean that we sort of wash our hands of it,” the spokesperson said.

But having a “proper pullout” in this area would require the cooperation of the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation, which is responsible for this scary road. We reached out to the agency for comment, but had not received a response at the time this went to press.

Looks like TransLink is passing it on to the municipality, which is passing it on to MoT – and it just passes. 

Voting should be open next week.