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1964 Rochester Transit Terminal Concept

January 6th, 2014

Like, WOW! I stumbled upon this concept for an elevated transit terminal in a 1967 D&C article. The drawing shows how Rochester Transit Corporation president William Lang envisioned passengers would wait for their bus – suspended above the intersection of Main & Clinton. This view is looking east toward Clinton Avenue with Sibley’s in the background…

In the op-ed piece (above) Lang explains how this terminal would one day be the hub of a circular metropolitan transit system. Like a great big “wheel” the outer rim would connect all of Rochester’s towns, and “spokes from these collection points would speed passengers to the center of the city over exclusive rights of way.”

Lang recounts his main points from a presentation he gave at a Civic Development Council luncheon on March 18, 1964…

The terminal would be at the center of the greater transit system and provide a speedy way for buses to load and unload passengers.
The elevated structure would require no land use (although he probably meant no land-aquisition).
The concourse would be glass enclosed.
Six sets of escalators provide access to street level.
Covered platforms would extend from the escalator landings to provide cover for passengers alighting & boarding.
The terminal would be well-lit, heated, and air-conditioned.
It would become a veritable community center of activity.

The modernist style is so typical of the era. It brings to mind images from the 1964-65 World’s Fair , and even Rochester’s own Midtown Plaza formerly at this very intersection.

50 years later (and two blocks from Main & Clinton) Rochester’s central bus terminal is now less than a year away from completion. Alas, our buses still do not speed passengers along any exclusive rights of way, as Lang envisioned. But perhaps by 2064? 😀

Tags: bus station, bus terminal, bus-stop, Civic Development Council, downtown Rochester, Main & Clinton, Main Street, mass transit, mass transportation, Mortimer Street, public transit, public transportation, Regional Transit Service (RTS), Rochester, Rochester NY, Rochester Transit Corporation, RTS Transit Terminal, transit, William Lang

This entry was posted on Monday, January 6th, 2014 at 12:01 am and is filed under Rochester History, Transit + Infrastructure, Urban Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “1964 Rochester Transit Terminal Concept”

ELF says:

January 6, 2014 at 8:12 am

Ugh, no. That would’ve ended up being yet another Modernist monstrosity we’d be regretting today.
Al says:

January 6, 2014 at 10:39 am

What is there to regret?! I think it looks coooooooooool!!!
Matthew Denker says:

January 6, 2014 at 12:33 pm

Modernist and brutalist are deeply dissimilar in their treatments. Were this really to be modernist (and it’s generally hard to tell from renderings), it would be incredible if maintained well (it wouldn’t have been, but like so many things, maybe we’d restore it these days). If it was to be brutalist, it’d be hopeless.

Bus lane right of way would be a great use of much of the excess street capacity in Rochester, but if you think people are negative toward cyclists, wait until you try to give part of the street to “those people.”
Carl Laitenberger says:

January 7, 2014 at 11:47 am

Given Rochester’s track record, this would have become another poorly maintained, if maintained at all, monstrosity, and demolished about twenty years after its construction.
daggar says:

January 13, 2014 at 1:32 pm

Defenders of modernist architecture often fault the building owners and keepers for failing to maintain the structures. There is truth here, but it’s also a fact that one common strand of modernism, especially late modernism, was to give very thought to how one -would- maintain the structure. Late modernists were often so enamored of new techniques and materials that they built structures which were expensive and physically difficult to maintain. (“If the roof doesn’t leak, the architect hasn’t been creative enough.” — F.L. Wright, in one of his most punchable moments.)

Modernists would often beg out of this using excuses of the vision or artistry of their creations, an argument holds little water– an artist is expected to know his materials. A sculptor whose creations collapse is not a good sculptor, no matter what his vision is. Someone that wants to build pretty but unusable structures should have an etsy page, not an architect’s license.

In any case, looking at this, one suspects it wouldn’t be just a poorly-maintained structure, but a structure whose designers gave little thought to upkeep and maintenance.
Annalyzeu says:

March 11, 2014 at 3:02 pm

@Matthew Denker, LOLs at the “those people” reference. If you’re referring to jay walkers who have big dreams of MVA settlements that is.

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1964 Rochester Transit Terminal Concept

6 Responses to “1964 Rochester Transit Terminal Concept”

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