“Why did the chicken cross the road?” is the start of what is probably the first or second joke we ever hear in our lifetimes (my favorite response is one I saw on t-shirts in Texas:  “To prove to the armadillo it could be done!”).  That old saw came to mind when I was talking to my friend and professor of transportation planning at Florida State University Gregory Thompson (he also wrote the history of the streetcar that appeared in this magazine).  We were discussing the myriad images created by consultants, state DOTs and other organizations showing bus stops and bus stop accessibility.  These images may show a poor connection to a suburban big box or an excellent integration with an urban, zero-setback, mixed-use building.  But in our experience something is always missing.  “How is the passenger going to get home?” Thompson asked.  “Where is the safe connection to get back across the street to go in the other direction?”

This image from TCRP Report 19 shows a nice connection to the building, but not back across the street.

On a scale of things-we-pay-attention-to in transit from one to ten with one being light rail-based transit oriented development and ten being chewed bubble gum removal, accessing the return bus stop must be the proverbial 11.  Of course, when we place bus stops on one side of the street most of us no doubt consider where the stop will be on the other side.  But when we are conceptualizing and constructing facilities are we paying the same attention to the crosswalk—perhaps even a midblock crosswalk—frogger logs (pedestrian refuges), and signals that make getting from a destination to a return stop safe?  It is said that the ancestor of every action is a thought.  If we don’t put these on our drawings how will the ever appear under foot?