Next Stop for Columbia Pike: Super Stops for Buses

Work on the project will include demolition of the old bus stops and construction of concrete curbs and gutters, heated concrete slabs and benches, and lighted shelters with metal space frame canopies and glass screen walls. Rivers said construction on the first Super Stop will begin sometime in the fall and last until spring.

Rivers said the hope is that the real-time system to identify the next bus arrival will be running when the Super Stops open in the spring. And she hopes the Super Stops are the beginning of a trend.

"These will be the first in the region, and we hope it'll be the prototype for the other bus corridors," she said. "With fuel prices as they are, we know for sure that more people are riding buses. For buses, bus stops are the entryway to the system, so the nicer you make those, that would help make people interested in taking public transit."

Chris Zimmerman (D), Metro board chairman and Arlington County Board member, said the goal is to transform bus service to something like in Europe, where he said it is assumed people will use the bus and where quality and expectations are high.

Zimmerman said he thinks the No. 16 line, which runs along Columbia Pike, is the most heavily traveled bus route in Virginia. "This is our biggest commercial corridor that doesn't have Metro," he said. And in the five years since improvements to the bus routes along the pike began, ridership has gone up, he said.

As for concerns about whether ridership justifies the service and the investment, that attitude is backward, Zimmerman said. He said it should be, "Does the service justify the ridership?"

"But we also wanted to say, 'What about making these good places to be?' " he said. "There's a certain level of service, a certain quality of amenities, that's expected, and we're trying to see if we can provide that at a transit stop and have people start to think about the service differently."