Each summer on sweltering hot days across Sydney people can be found waiting for the bus in baking temperatures, with no shelter, no seat, and no shade. The sustainable liveable cities of our future will need great public transport, but right now waiting for the bus on a hot day in Western Sydney can be dangerous or impossible.
So what’s the plan?
1. We’re collecting photos of bus stops across Sydney and we need your help. Check out this page for more information on how to send us your photos. Or just tag #BustedBusStop on instagram or twitter and we’ll find it.
2. Together we’re creating an interactive map of bus stops across Sydney to show how bad the situation is. The map will show the many bus stops without seats and shelter across the city, and include your photos and stories about how these bus stops feel in the sweltering summer heat. Fill out this form to tell us where unsheltered bus stops are in your area.
Bus shelters are a simple and practical way to increase access to renewably powered transport and make our cities safer in the heat.
Too often, extreme heat is experienced as a personal or individual problem. In fact it impacts hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people at the same time. So the solutions can’t just be about each person’s capacity or struggles to access cool spaces, travel around the city or feel safe at home. We need to think bigger. We need to be ambitious in how we cool our suburbs, plan our transport and increase the energy efficiency standards of all of our homes. Great bus shelters are a simple step towards an equitable, sustainable and liveable city of our future.
As the climate changes and temperatures rise, residents in our cities are facing searing temperatures, with some suburban streets reaching over 50°C. Waiting at a bus stop without a seat or shade in baking heat is exhausting and risks dehydration or heat stress, especially for older people and children.
We’ve heard from our community members that sustainable accessible bus shelters with great design would have a huge impact on how we travel, live, work and play. It will also demonstrate that the transformation to more sustainable cities will include everyone, not just people who can afford luxury vehicles.
The Busted Bus Stop campaign involves the development of tools and tactics that can be applied to different issues around the country, whether that’s energy inefficient infrastructure, heat shelters, baking hot pedestrian intersections, hot suburbs or great examples of cooling infrastructure.