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Metro Transit And The Better Bus Stop Engagement Essay

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Berry Farrington of Metro Transit and the Better Bus Stop Engagement

Context
“The bus stop is the front porch of the Metro Transit system,” said Berry Farrington, senior planner at Metro Transit and the Better Bus Stops (BBS) project manager. It is certainly where many Minnesotans start their daily travels. Given the role of the bus stop, Metro Transit believes it is necessary to make these places “safe, secure, and comfortable” for their riders. The BBS engagement process began in March 2016 in an effort to not only add and improve bus shelters across Metro Transit’s service area but to engage with its riders in order to develop better parameters and guidelines for future bus stop investments. The process will end in March 2017.
The funding for the BBS engagement comes from a $3.26 million dollar Ladders of Opportunity Grant from the Federal Transit Administration for bus stop improvements that Metro Transit won in late 2014. Besides improving bus shelters and stops, Metro Transit also saw this grant as an opportunity to work towards the Metropolitan Council regional government’s Thrive MSP 2040 plan objective of “raising awareness of the complex interdependencies of income, race, place and opportunity and to challenge both itself and others to think regionally and act equitably for a better region for all.”
The BBS process is also aimed at addressing Metro Transit’s negative press from failing to appropriately balance its bus stop investments across its ridership. A

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