Why are new shelters being placed with the opening away from the street? It doesn’t allow us enough time to step out and go around when the bus arrives. If it’s to protect us from elements, it’s not working. I discovered this on a blustery night standing at the Walmart on Damascus Rd. The wind and rain are just as likely to come in from the opening when it’s away from the street, as they are when it’s facing the street. Drivers won’t stop if no one is out front waiting (I don’t blame them) and with the benches all facing away from the street, if we’re sitting, we can’t see the buses coming, because we have our backs to them. Which brings me to my second question… Why are the seats facing backwards? How it’s working with the newly installed ones now, is that I have to stand to see the bus coming, and if I want to make sure that I don’t miss it, I have to stand outside the shelter. Does that make sense? I don’t feel like standing and waiting for the bus when I’ve been on my feet for about 10 hours already at the hospital and I’d like to be able to sit to wait for it.
It’d be great if starting right now new ones would be installed the right way, and even better if the ones that have been placed this way could be changed or am I just supposed to be thankful that I’ve got a shelter and bench? —Die Hard Transit Fan, But Getting Fed Up
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.
lol stand up you lazy ass 😀 Seats face “backward” because if you put them on the side with the door, there would be no room for any real seating at all.
I want you to ask this same question to yourself.. just more slowly.
Why do YOU think bus shelters don’t have doors that spit right out into busy streets?
I would say an ideal solution would be to put the doors on the sides of the shelters. But a door facing the street?? Please do HRM a favour and avoid getting involved with any sort of city planning that takes any amount of critical thinking skills.
BC bus shelter:
http://www.transitbc.com/transitfuture/ima…
TTC (Toronto) bus shelter:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/505318…
STM (Montreal) bus shelter:
http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_my_p_m/0_my_…
What do they have in common? 1. They are all placed back far enough from the street to allow for passage on the sidwalk
2. They all open facing the street
3. They all have benches facing the street. (I know it’s not feasible to install benches at every bus stop)
While I think think the OB is lucky to even have a bus shelter at their stop, (some of mine don’t), and not ALL HRM bus shelters are arranged the same as the OB describes, I DO agree with their line of thinking that if you are going to invest the money to install a new bus shelter, at least have the common sense to set it up in some sort of logical, user friendly layout.
this one is cool and very visible http://www.papky.com/images/2010/03/Creati…
Lucky to have any shelters at all considering some of the FuckTards who think it’s a cool thing to smash the sides out of them,
YUCK. You shouldn’t sit on those seats regardless of how tired you are! People piss on those all the time (are you hard of smelling?), not to mention all the garbage and spit found around bus “shelters”. Minimize your interaction with these structures.
haha “what am i, hard of smelling” http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=…
When I lived in PEI, Charlottetown bought a bunch of bus shelters that were too small for one person in a wheelchair/walker to be in. And the opening was directly above the curb, rendering it inaccessible anyway.
The position of the Halifax shelters may be an effort to make them accessible.
True, Wheelie. Sorry to say I hadn’t considered that.
Thanks for that, Vastie. Then again, the Halifax ones could be set up stupid just because.
The Ch’town bus people obviously never consulted even one person in a chair about their bus shelters.
So who knows?
I do know the continuum of disability and people with different needs(strollers, walkers etc) is very wide. It’s no doubt difficult to make these things work for everyone.
Sometime though, it would be simply grand to see they put at least minimal thought into it.
some shelters have dual exits, on either end, like at dart. terminal.
I don’t know but a little critical thinking would revealthat by having the opening at the rear rather than the front would protect passengers from being splattered with mud, water slush, etc when a bus and other vehicles drive by during inclimate weather. Could just be.
Shouldn’t it be considered that to make the shelters back far enough, they’d be on private property? Winnipeg has heated bus shelters!
http://www.uphaa.com/blog/index.php/cooles…
How about these?
I wish I took the bus. I seem to be missing out on so much.
Yes but, J’yo, the average temperature in Winnipeg is a measly 3 degrees above absolute zero. Heated shelters are a must. Otherwise the bum pissing in the corner gets his junk frozen to the shelter the instant he releases his bladder and the air hits it. Messy, not to mention crowded.
Oh, and Troon……um..no….no, not really.
not getting icy puddles splashed all over everyone has its advantages….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ-w0WVkwqQ
I dunno, it looks invigorating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9qcIpxK04E…