1964 Rochester Transit Terminal Concept

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published January 06, 2014 and can be found here.

   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?