Bus Stops I Have Known -- Bus Stop #5

NW Market Street and Ballard Avenue, Seattle.

I frequently visit this bus stop, located in downtown Ballard.

Overall Bus Stop Ratings (out of 5 stars)

***** User Friendliness. Yes, I have a soft spot for this bus stop, and it gets five stars for User Friendliness. It has a bus shelter (more about that later), another bus shelter (yes, indeed, very artsy), as well as the much preferred awning in front of the shops located behind the bus shelters. It has a garbage can AND a recycling can, a bus schedule and map, and even a bench. Overall, a very well-equipped bus stop.

**** Interest of Surroundings. Ballard is pretty interesting. It used to be more interesting, back when there was a cool paper arts store right behind these bus shelters, but it's still pretty cool. There's a lot of small shops and businesses that I love in Ballard, like Cookies, Nervous Nellies, Secret Garden Bookstore, Great Harvest... plus, there are several good coffee shops and bars in Ballard. But, this bus stop only gets four stars for interest, because it's a little boring compared to the rest of Ballard, alas.

*** Architecture of Surroundings. Obviously, I like the early 1900s building behind this bus stop, and The Ballard Building across the street. There's too much in the way of condo construction going on in Ballard, but you can't see too much of that from this bus stop, so it gets three stars.

**** Personal Safety. Safe for all levels of awakeness and soberness.

** Creepy Factor. I know secrets about this bus stop, so I give it two stars for creepyness.

Now, since I teased you a little, should I tell you some secrets I knwo about this particular bus stop???

Once upon a time, this bus stop wasn't there! It was built during a major reconstruction of Market Street that also repaved the old bricks at the intersection of Market and 22nd. Boo on that. But, hooray, because part of the original plan was to put a public restroom at this bus stop. Can you IMAGINE? Sheesh. Luckily, that plan was ditched.

My store, Turtle Press, used to be right behind this bus stop, back when this bus stop was just a sign in the ground. Then, they revamped the bus stop too, including placing these uberartsy bus shelters right directly in front of our store! So, while the shelters are kind of nice, I have some residual negative feelings about these particular bus shelters. We complained to Metro, to the Ballard Chamber of Commerce, to the Neighborhood Service Center, to anyone who would listen. But we were told only that moving the bus shelters was out of the question. And to the idea that our businesses was being impacted by the fact that people couldn't see our store through the bus shelter frosted glass? We were told that it was part of the artist's "artistic vision," and that it would not be changed.

This bus stop did hurt our business. But as far as Bus Stops I Have Known goes, it's a nice bus stop.