“I was nearly hit by a car trying to access that bus stop,” Ted Henson, who lives nearby, told me in an email.

AD

(If you haven’t read the whole story about this bus stop, go read our earlier post. But please finish this one first!)

The crowdsourced competition, ran by Streetsblog, featured 16 bus stops from across the United States. They are in poor condition and like this one in Silver Spring, are difficult to access because of a lack of sidewalks, crossroads and ramps. They have no basic amenities such as shelters.

So far Silver Spring has come out strong from each round. In the “sweet sixteen” round, it took down a New Castle, Del., bus stop said to be in “appalling conditions to expect people to walk to or from.” On Tuesday, it advanced to the semifinal after beating a bus stop in Asheville, N.C. with 83 percent of the vote. Then it ousted a poor bus stop in Boston.

AD

AD

In the final, Silver Spring is facing a Kansas City bus stop. “Not only does it lack shelter, but you can’t even tell it’s a bus stop,” Streetsblog says of that location.

Does Silver Spring deserve the title as home of America’s sorriest bus stop? You be the judge. You can look at the finalists and vote here. So far, Silver Spring leading by seven votes.

Some voters say the bus stop, which is at Crestmoor Drive, just north of Four Corners and south of the Shoppes of Burnt Mills, is one of the worst bus stops in the Washington region. Officials said earlier this week that about a dozen people board a bus there on a daily basis.

“It’s pretty awful,” said Dan Reed, a Silver Spring resident who passes the bus stop every day and nominated it for the contest.

About making it to finals, he said: “It warms my heart that so many people have embraced this awful bus stop, and I’m hopeful that this will be a call to everyone responsible to fix it, and soon.”

And others on Twitter agree:

a well deserved award — I go past this every single day and it is actively used on a very busy highway https://t.co/MEHISYdL38

Save