Public Transportation 75 Years Apart

Doing some historical research on transportation in Bloomington-Normal, and I came across this interesting photo from 1949 at the bus stop at Washington and Mason St. Beautiful and sturdy bench.

I checked for the current stop, which is one block away at Washington and Oak…

Obviously, these two images have a much longer story to tell than what meets the eye. First off, why was the bench removed? Why was the stop moved one block east? How has the bus system changed over the years?

While researching this topic, it is hard to ignore the elephant in the room: rise of car ownership and suburbanization of the city. Since the 1950s, Bloomington has mirrored many other communities across the country in building hundreds of single family tract homes on new street layouts. Buses would have a hard time navigating those neighborhoods, and most residents bought cars anyways. Prewar Bloomington-Normal was a denser city, with a connected grid system that better supported efficient public transit. So perhaps, these benches or lack thereof, are an indicator species on the health of the transit system?

Many more reasons play into the fact there are no benches at most Connect Transit stops: administrative red tape, intransigent property owners, and certainly above all, a lack of adequate funding.

I’ll keep this in mind as we try to remedy the situation.