‘Sorriest’ bus stop not yet changed
Four years ago, city and AC Transit said they would work on it
FREMONT >> More than four years after a bus stop in Fremont was nominated as one of “America’s Sorriest” and officials from AC Transit and the city said they would work together to figure out how to improve it, not much has changed and some bus riders say the stop is still dangerous and inconvenient.
The stop, at the southwest corner of Auto Mall Parkway and Technology Drive, has no sidewalks leading up to it for hundreds of feet, no benches or seats, no shelter and it is overgrown with grasses and weeds, which are strewn with trash. It has a curb ramp for people who use wheelchairs, but it leads to a dirt or mud waiting area.
“Basically, I think it says take it or leave it,” Nick Fanella, 24, of Fremont said about the stop.
Fanella lives nearby, and rides his bike and the bus often.
Hans Larsen, Fremont’s public works director, said the city considers the area a low priority for improvements as the stop is in a “low-density industrial area” and has “very low levels of pedestrian activity.”
The stop is directly across from a mobile home park with hundreds of homes and close to a climbing gym, swim school, two churches, the Fremont Unified School District administration building and a beauty college, among other businesses.
Some riders approaching the stop walk in the bike lane of Auto Mall while drivers rush by alongside them during commutes between interstates 880 and 680, often well over the 45 mph speed limit.
“At least a bench or something” would help improve the stop, Fanella said in an interview. “I have to stand there or sit on the curb and risk getting smacked?”
Fremont has known about the roughly quarter-mile total of missing sidewalks east and west of the stop since at least 2016 and other sidewalk gaps nearby leading to the stop even earlier, according to pedestrian master plan documents the city published.
Larsen said citywide, there are about $100 million worth of needed sidewalk improvements, but only about $2 million budgeted annually for those needs.
“We assign priorities
based on locations requested by persons with disabilities, locations with severe sidewalk damage that present a tripping hazard, as well as locations designated as ‘priority development areas’ and ‘safe routes to school’ pathways,” Larsen said.
Larsen said Fremont does not have records of anyone complaining about the bus stop since 2017.
When asked if the city had been contacted by AC Transit about improving the stop or if the city had contacted AC Transit, Larsen said, “No, not specifically,” but noted that the two agencies “work closely” on other transit projects in the city.
A resident nominated the stop as one of the country’s sorriest as part of a 2017 contest on Streetsblog USA, a website focused on walking, biking and transit issues. The stop ultimately lost to another in Seattle alongside freight train tracks.
AC Transit external affairs representative Steven Jones said in September 2017 that while all the infrastructure at the agency’s bus stops — things like sidewalks, curb ramps and loading pads — are the responsibility of the city, he noted that improving this bus stop could be an “easy fix” with the transit agency collaborating with the city and likely could be done at a “minimal expense.”
Jones also said at that time that AC Transit would be “reaching out to the city and working with the traffic engineering department to see what can be done to improve this bus stop.”
This month, AC Transit’s head of media affairs, Robert Lyles, said the stop “has been discussed with the city’s Public Works Department,” though he didn’t offer more detail on the discussion. He also walked back AC Transit’s previous statements from 2017.
The agency’s 2017 response about the stop “may have not reflected an accurate gauge of bus stop processes and timetables,” Lyles said. “Bus stops are city infrastructure and are neither ‘easy,’ nor do infrastructure improvements represent ‘minimal expense’ to a municipality.”
Larsen, in 2017, questioned whether that location is good for a bus stop, but nevertheless said, “We look forward to working with AC Transit on an improved situation for our residents and their customers.”
The most frequent line at the stop is the 212, running to and from the Fremont BART station and the Pacific Commons Shopping Center off Auto Mall. Before the pandemic, seven people daily got on a bus at that stop on average and two got off, according to Lyles. Currently, five people board a bus daily at the stop on average and one gets off the bus.
Jones, in September 2017, said about 12 people were using the bus stop each weekday and about 16 people were using it on weekends. Lyles did not explain why his figures were different.
Some say low ridership shouldn’t matter in deciding how a stop is maintained.
“Even if it’s not a wellused bus stop, there are still people using it and someone could get hurt,” said Will, a man who works nearby and rides AC Transit buses regularly, and asked for his last name to not be published.
“No one realizes there is a bus stop there,” Will said of the drivers who whoosh by in cars along Auto Mall Parkway. “If something happens, it’s all on the city.”
He said the current condition of the stop shows that AC Transit and the city are “not caring about the safety of the people.”
Angie Schmitt, a transportation consultant and author who previously wrote for Streetsblog, said the conditions at this bus stop, and others around the nation, help illustrate why the contest exists.
“The point of the contest is just to get people to think about this critically. Why do we accept such shabby infrastructure for bus riders?” Schmitt said. “I think it has to do with the social status, in a lot of cases, of the riders. We wouldn’t tolerate it if the riders were higher-status people. We wouldn’t make them stand in the dirt.”