Here's What the Country's 'Sorriest Bus Stop' Looks Like

SILVER SPRING, MD — While it's nothing to cheer about, a bus stop perched on six-lane Route 29 in Silver Spring — a stop with no sidewalk leading to it — has been named the country’s worst bus stop.

The Streetsblog’s Sorriest Bus Stop tournament has gathered votes on the worst transit stops nationwide and says “only the least appealing, most dehumanizing bus stops are still standing.”

The winner/loser in the tourney is the Silver Spring stop on Colesville Road at Crestmoor Drive south of the Shoppes of Burnt Mills. "In terms of pure danger, it’s hard to top this tiny refuge next to a state highway with no crossing to protect pedestrians from speeding traffic," says Streetsblog.

Criteria for bad bus stops are those that are difficult to reach because of a lack of sidewalks, crossroads and ramps; no shelters or pavement pads; and stops situated along major roads. In the Silver Spring case, the stop has no sidewalk or crosswalk to help users reach the site, no shelter and sits right next to three lanes of busy traffic.

Local resident Dan Reed nominated the bus stop.

“Metrobus should get props for having great service – buses come every few minutes during rush hour, and service runs 22 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is, if you can actually get to this bus stop, and we’ve got the Maryland State Highway Administration to blame for it,” Reed wrote in his nomination for the dubious honor.

“There are no sidewalks leading to it. It’s at an intersection, but there’s no crosswalk and no stoplight. And, of course, there’s a steep hill next to it. I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve only ever seen one person waiting for the bus here. I’m pretty sure they were dropped from a plane or something.”

»Is this the worst bus stop in the country? Share your experiences in comments.

One reader said the Silver Spring stop is “awful, and to boot there have been issues with creeps stalking women around some of the other stops. This half mile of Colesville Road is like someone just ran out of space and said ‘F it’."

The stop is close to a park with a walking/jogging trail, says jdwilson, but it’s not safe to walk that stretch of the highway with a small child or a stroller.

Another reader, calwatch, wrote that the Silver Spring stop has no reason to exist. “That neighborhood is served by three stops in each direction in less than half a mile. They should be consolidated into a stop with a shelter and a crosswalk, and the others eliminated,” the commenter said.

Streetsblog editor Angie Schmitt told The Washington Post it hopes “the competition helps people see these places with fresh eyes. … Relatively inexpensive infrastructure like bus shelters and trash cans can really make a difference for riders. In other cases, sidewalks, crosswalks and the wider set of street conditions need attention.”

But any changes or improvements at the stop seem tangled in bureaucracy.

Three agencies have a say in the stop, reports the Post: The Maryland State Highway Administration owns the road; Montgomery County maintains bus stops; and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority runs buses to the stop. Representatives for the governments disagree on which entity has responsibility for the site.

»Photo of troubled Silver Spring bus stop via Google Earth