Allan Appel Photo
Hennah waits for the Q at one of 6 stops to be eliminated.
Vivian Hennah was resting her bum leg while she waited for the Q bus at the corner of State and Bishop streets — an opportunity she won’t have much longer.
That bus stop, along with five others along Upper State Street, will soon disappear as a result of a vote this week by the city’s Traffic Authority.
The State-Bishop stop is just around the corner from where Hennah works. Told Thursday about the pending change, she looked down State another block and a half to Humphrey, where an existing stop is to be retained. She sighed at the prospect of what would be a tough walk now. When her leg heals, she said, it’ll be easier.
Officials said they are eliminating the three little-used outbound and three inbound stops to create a more mellifluous and efficient traffic flow, and to free up 300 feet of new parking for potential shoppers and patrons of local eateries. The traffic commissioners voted unanimously to make the change Wednesday evening at a meeting at police headquarters, acting on the recommendations of a regional transit study and of Upper State Street businesses.
The doomed outbound stop at Eld.
The study, conducted by the South Central Regional Council on Government (SCRCOG), recommends a quarter-mile spacing between bus stops in order to improve service. The stops scheduled to be eliminated — or, to use transportationese, to be “rescinded” — are closer together than that.
They include three stops on the outbound east side of the street and a similar number on the inbound west side of State.
The outbound stops slated for elimination are at Eld Street, opposite the intersection; Pearl Street/Humphrey Street at mid-block; and Bishop Street opposite the intersection.
The vanishing inbound stops on the west side are at Mechanic Street; Bishop Street, where Hennah was waiting; and Pearl Street/Eld Street at mid-block.
Hausladen and Fischer outline the proposal.
City Deputy Director of Transportation, Traffic, & Parking Bruce Fischer assured the commissioners that the main stops on this corridor — like at Humphrey and Bradley — will be kept.
Fischer said the regional study recommended that bus stops have no more frequent intervals than a quarter of a mile, or about 1,250 feet. He called this a national standard.
Commissioner Evelise Ribeiro asked how much farther bus patrons will now have to walk between stops. Maybe half 600 feet, Fischer responded
Fischer characterized the stops to be discontinued as “low ridership and patronage.” He said the move will both improve bus service in the area and please the Upper State Street Association, because Upper State is short on both on-street and off-street parking.
Commissioner Greg Smith asked if parking meters will sprout where bus stop poles once stood.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen said that his office has been working for years with the association’s merchants to address parking needs. The regional study provided the data to help move ahead both more efficient bus service and the parking needs of the merchants, “without introducing parking meters.”
Stop in front of Booker T. Washington Academy, mid-block between Pearl and Eld.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, Commissioners Evelise Ribeiro and Stephen Garcia pressed Hausladen and Fischer on public notice about the change. Fischer recalled three public meetings on the matter.
Garcia recalled that some years ago when a bus stop was eliminated, without sufficient notice, in the Chapel and Church area downtown, there was a public outcry.
“These are lightly used stops,” Fischer said.
“‘Lightly used’ is an arbitrary term,” Garcia parried.
What if there’s a problem with the plan and patrons are unhappy? Ribeiro pressed Hausladen.
“We’ll bring it right back to the commission,” Hausladen answered.
Not every local merchant is in enthusiastic agreement with the new development. Octavious McAuley, who has run his Pro Style barbership for 20 years opposite the outbound Eld Street stop, which is to be eliminated, was of two minds.
“You need both” more parking and more efficient bus service, he said during an interview Thursday at his shop.
“The bigger thing to do is try to get the business owners to keep [existing] spaces for the customers” instead of parking in the spaces themselves, he said.
“Why add more spaces if the owners themselves use the ones we have and don’t think of leaving them for the customers?” he asked.
Back at State and Bishop, Hennah said she likes the stop because it is only about a block or so from Artisans to Cane on East Street, where for the last three weeks she has learned to cane chairs and other furniture. “Right now I need this short distance. When it gets better I guess I can get to Humphrey,” she said.
She had checked the schedule of the Q Bus while still at work and had about five minutes more of a wait for it to come. Hennah said she planned to cash her check, go home, and then go door-to-door with her fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses “preaching the Kingdom of God to anyone who wants to listen.”
Asked how her leg would stand up, she said, “We go in twos, and if I get tired, I sit in the car.”
Then the Q bus lumbered up, and Hennah boarded for her journey toward Kimberly Avenue in the Hill.
