Inspiration & Improvement

Why Does This Project Inspire Me?

This project is in particularly interesting and inspiring because of its ability to fulfill many criteria and standards of different audiences. As a city transportation agency, Santa Clara VTA’s Bus Rapid Transit service and its improvements to bus stop design is fascinating. There are an enormous amount of factors that play into what constitutes as a good design in terms of stops for the public community. The agency has to take into account the number of people on the routes, the surrounding environment, the crime rates in neighbor  and in the end is able to design a station that fits many of the criteria and needs. They have a variety of options for bus station design and plan amenities according to  location. They have a strict priority on providing safe and accessible spaces to all. This project is inspiring mostly by their continuing goal by making people-friendly improvements to bus stations. They are able to reach beyond the boundaries of designing a bus station to a larger goal of helping to reshape communities. Their improvements such as the BRT model have brought more passengers to the Santa Clara area and this encourages economic business acitivity. Internally, it provides enhanced passenger service, greater comfort and a sense of safety and community among commuters, residents, and workstaff. When designing for a bus station for Northampton, we must be sure to be able to meet all of the criteria of a standard bus stop and perform analysis on the commuters and people who use the Megabus services the most, similarly to what VTA BRT service has been doing. This way we can appropriate design for the right audience. We must also consider its local residents, its nearby community and how they would feel about the station placement and find ways to benefit them as well, as the commuter and the city.

What Makes VTA’s BRT Stations A Great Place?

Access and Linkage

Bus lane provides safety loading and exiting area for passengers. It connects passengers, commuters, residents and businesses to one another. They make their services accessible to all commuters whether if you use a wheelchair, hearing aid or guide animal.

Comfort and Image

Seating is planned accordingly. Shelter provides warmth and light for safety. Their brand is recognizable everywhere and the bus stations are clean and convenient. In larger stations, they do provide more seats and in more dangerous parts of a city where stations are located, they provide more light.

Uses and Activities

Some of their larger stations are build not only as a bus station, but also as a public space for the community to relax and hang around. The stations provide a safe and stable way people can travel to their destinations  and come back to their communities. During holidays and large city wide events, they plan specifically to make sure transportation serivices are convenient and available for its residents and visitors.

Integration & Sociability

Many of their stations are integrated with their communities providing it as a space for not only commuters, but for businesses and local residents, too. Bigger stations with many amenities such a food carts, cafe, internet turns the station into a public place where people can feel safe to hang around.

 

What Are Possible Improvements?

Even though the community voices criticisms on designs and stations, it may not be always address. The people who live in the community where a station is about to be build should be heard and have say when such a big project is being developed in their neighborhood. But is is important to realize that you can never make all people happy.

For BRT I think there needs to be more a closer analysis on the number of people who use each stop. Despite their intensive work on trying to please the city staff, the commuters and the residents, they still arises discontentment. They need to take the station stop design on a case by case process rather than design one efficient stop that is inclusive of everything- standard and place that same design at every stop. Each stop is different in terms of neighborhood needs, amount of people who use it and what they might need. This will change the design completely. It is often that stations in particularly low end neighborhoods get ignored when there are service requests. Stations in more crime prone areas need more maintenance and should be addressed quickly. They use easily use improvement techniques such as stronger lights, reflectors and placement of larger shelter to elevate some of the concern for safety at those stations.

Photo/GIF Credit: Jingyi Zhang. Picture shows a before and after of a urban design project for a bus station. [ PICTURE IS A GIF – WAIT FOR ANIMATION]

For example, the bus stop above is a standard bus stop that needs serveral improvement. Yes, there are all the basic amenities and this stop would be sufficient — if there were less people using it. This station however is in a busy place, in front of a bank, shopping area that serves families, visitors and young school childrens. The most important improvement needed here would be a larger seating area. As you can see from above, there are many people just standing around and benches for seating are just too far apart. They could also use a more visible bus sign, a bus rack, some trees to add to the aesthetics. These improvements can better integrate the bus stop into the city and make it a public place where people enjoy to be. It would beneficial to the nearby business owners, the commuters and the local residents. The shift picture shown above show a dramatic difference in what small improvements can make for a bus station. This will benefit most the image of the bus company as well as the people who are utilizing it.

Source: SF Muni new Wave Bus Shelters

One of VTA’s BRT goals is to be more environmentally friendly and green in terms of its designs, however so far they have no real guidelines reached and none implemented. Instead they use a lot of light to charge their stations with advertisements. There are many designs like that of the San Francisco agency nearby who has addressed the “sustainability” aspect of bus stations. In the above picture you could see the city of San Francisco’s new “Seismic Wave” Transit Shelters. The are considered the most sustainable shelter under the sun. It contains solar powered cells to generate 100 watts of electricity and uses 40 percent of the energy captured on the solar model to be recycled back into the power grid.

It combines green technology to create a compelling and iconic structure (wave is similar to SF MUNI agency logo) to meet the visual aesthetics as well as the environmental goals of the City and its residents. VTA BRT’s services can start a similar process to address the the environmental sustainability concerns of Santa Clara and its residents.