Bus Platform Leaves Riders Unprotected

By John Burgeson, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Feb. 19–BRIDGEPORT — If you’re waiting for a bus at the shiny new bus station downtown, and it happens to rain or snow, chances are you’ll get wet.

“What’s it like waiting for the bus when it rains — You get wet, that’s what it’s like,” said frequent bus rider John Smith, who said he takes the bus just about everywhere in the area. “Even the benches get wet.”

Since Labor Day weekend when the $23 million terminal off Water Street opened, bus passengers have been plagued with what might be called excess exposure to the elements. The issue has gotten serious enough to prompt the Greater Bridgeport Transit Authority to seek modifications to the boarding platforms, which now feature problematic upward-slanting roofs.

“The platforms aren’t meeting the needs of our riders,” said Doug Holcomb, GBTA’s planning and service development officer. “We did get some complaints — especially on days with driving rain and severe weather.”

He said that GBTA officials are “somewhat disappointed” with the way things turned out, but added the bus depot, as a whole, is “working as it was designed.”

He said the airy 10,000-square-foot terminal building, in which the arriving buses are announced over a public address system, does offer a warm, protected place to wait.

On Feb. 29, the GBTA will open bids for the design phase of modifications to the platforms.

“The engineer will actually visit the station during inclement weather before considering possible solutions,” he said. “That’s explicit in the contract — we want them to see what happens when there’s inclement weather.”

These modifications, he said, won’t involve replacing or altering the V-shaped platform roofs, but may include the fabrication of glass weather screens to offer riders better protection in driving rain or snow. Some of the platforms might be enclosed on three sides, he said.

These would be in addition to the windscreens installed late last year, about two months after the terminal opened. The screens are artistically etched with scenes of machines that move people — locomotives, buses, ferries and the like — along with snippets of prose and poetry about travel, such as “The Travels of Marco Polo,” Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine,”"Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled” and Emily Dickinson’s “The Road to Paradise is plain.”

The engineering phase of the project will cost between $14,000 and $19,000 — money that will be allocated from funds from an existing federal grant “that’s still open,” he said.

The modifications themselves — which he expects will cost $130,000 to $140,000 — would have to be financed with new grant funds from the Federal Transit Administration.

The station is located on Water Street, near the Fairfield Avenue intersection, where the easterly breeze off the Pequonnock River and the harbor passes unhindered under the elevated Metro-North tracks. The former bus station in the early-1950s-era downtown parking garage at John and Middle streets, was dark and uninviting, but offered better protection from the elements.

In a related development, Holcomb said that the elevated walkway, which will connect the bus and railroad stations with the Harbor Yard garage may open soon, according to what he heard at a recent session between city and FTA officials.

“I know our riders are eager to have that walkway open,” he said, acknowledging the frustration over the walkway’s continued closure six months after the terminal opened.

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