“Sorriest Bus Stops” Contest Final Four Battle: Vancouver vs. Pittsburgh

There are just four finalists in Streetblog’s month-long “Sorriest Bus Stops in (North) America” competition — with voting ongoing in the battle between New Orleans and Cincinnati (vote now!).

Today, we look at the other Final Four matchup: Pittsburgh and Vancouver (yes, Canada is finally giving America’s curbside killers a run for their money).

It’s a battle for the ages.

Vancouver

The Vancouver media is fired up about this one. And you can really see why: It is so, so bad.

Vancouver has just been mowing down the competition, besting really awful examples in San Rafael and Beverly Hills.

Jason Lee, who nominated this stop, thinks the transit agency, Translink, the transit agency that serves this stop, is actually probably one of the best, if not the best, transit agency in North America. The agency has seen impressive ridership growth, even while most U.S. agencies have suffered losses. Lee says it’s doing a great job servicing outer suburban areas like this one as well. You notice in this photo, the outer lane of the scary highway is a bus lane.

The Canadian Broadcasting Company made contact with the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation (which did not respond to our outreach). The agency said it is having discussions with Translink about how to either move the stop or make it safer. Gee, um, thanks?

Pittsburgh

And now let’s take a moment to shame Pittsburgh. This lovely hilly city is the only metro area to have four bus stops featured in this competition in the last two years alone. That’s a badge of honor — or in this case, dishonor.

While this sorry bus stop is technically in the Borough of West View, we wonder: What is it about metro Pittsburgh that makes its bus stops so gallingly bad? Is it the terrain? The transit agency? We don’t know. But the city’s famously uneven terrain certainly contributes to the problem here, where a hill forces the bus stop up against a high-speed road with bad visibility.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which is responsible for the transit system, said it plans to eliminate this bus stop so people can use a safer one a short distance away.

Riders on this stop must access the stop from this set of concrete stairs.

You know the drill. Vote here: