Ernesto Laiva and his son Danko spent just a few hours visiting Philly on Thursday but managed to fit in visits to several choice attractions.
They included the Rocky statue, Reading Terminal Market — and the brand-new bathrooms at the intercity bus terminal on Spring Garden Street.
They enjoyed all of them, including the lavatory facilities.
“Genial,” said Laiva, meaning “amazing” in Spanish, after he emerged from the mobile bathroom structure set up a short walk from the curbside bus stop area.
At the same time, they noted that finding the bathroom had been a little tricky.
The two visitors, Chileans who are staying in New York during a month-long trip, first tried looking for restrooms at a gas station across the street. Then they wandered around asking people along Spring Garden.
They were finally directed to walk to Delaware Avenue, turn the corner, and turn again onto Noble Street, where the city installed the bathrooms last month.
“It’s muy bueno,” they said, laughing. “Very good.”
New facilities getting plenty of use
The lack of bathrooms was one of the main complaints about the city’s main stop for Greyhound, Peter Pan, FlixBus and Megabus after the terminal was moved from Old City to Spring Garden Street, at the edge of Northern Liberties, in mid-November.
The city opened the lavatory building for ticketed customers on Dec. 22, according to the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability (OTIS). It’s a white, elevated, trailer-like structure with men’s and women’s bathrooms and a third wheelchair-accessible bathroom with a ramp. Next to the building, an attendant sits in an enclosed booth and monitors use of the facility.
The attendant Thursday declined to be interviewed, except to say that the new facility was getting plenty of use.
The bathrooms are free and open to ticket-holding bus passengers from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to OTIS spokesperson Matt Cassidy.
“Everything we’ve heard from our team on the ground indicates the newly installed bathroom facilities are working well,” Cassidy said. “The city is continuing to monitor the situation for improvements.”
Accessibility problems remain
The bathroom unit is sited in a former industrial area at the corner of Front and Noble streets, which are made of cobblestone and other materials that would be difficult for a wheelchair user to navigate.
The city repaved part of Noble Street with asphalt to create a smoother surface for the approach from Delaware Avenue.
“While Front Street is composed of cobblestone, the bathroom facilities can be accessed by paved sidewalk along Delaware Avenue and paved surface on Noble Street,” Cassidy said.
However, as of Thursday, the asphalt paving appeared to be incomplete, leaving a gap in the middle of Noble where there were still exposed cobblestones.
Despite the repaving, “the approach on either side is filled with potholes,” transit advocate Micah Fiedler said. Fiedler co-wrote an accessibility review of the bus terminal with Disabled in Action, Transit Forward Philadelphia and other groups.
Their report, released last month, criticized the site for lacking bathrooms at the time, air pollution and “overwhelming” noise, poor accessibility at the ticket office, problems accessing the Megabus pickup area across the street, the lack of an elevator at the nearby Spring-Garden subway stop, and other issues.
OTIS noted that a number of ADA-compliant bus lines connect the bus terminal to other SEPTA stations, including the Route 5 bus.
Wayfinding still a problem
Another issue for disability and transit advocates has been the quality of signage at the bus terminal, which sees visitors unfamiliar with Philadelphia arriving all day long.
As of Thursday, there was one sign along Spring Garden pointing to the bathroom. It was attached to a utility pole and was folded over from the wind, which obscured the words on the sign. Signs on the ticket office doors say “No public restrooms,” indicating the office itself doesn’t have bathrooms.
Two maps on the walls inside have icons showing the location of the bathroom, and a city ambassador pointed the way when asked. Cassidy said ticket agents can also provide the information.
None of that was apparent to some of the passengers waiting in the cold on the Spring Garden Avenue sidewalk. Brittany Knarr said she was coming from New Jersey and waiting for a bus to Detroit.
“There’s, like, no seating or anything,” said Knarr, who had previously traveled through the city’s former bus station building on Filbert Street, which Greyhound shut down last year. At the new curbside bus terminal, “it’s a two-hour wait sometimes and I just wish there were benches for people and places to stay warm.”
She was surprised to learn there was an indoor office with seating on the next block and a bathroom around the corner. “They need more directions. Such a hard place to find,” she said.
OTIS is working to install more durable plastic signage in the coming weeks around the bus loading area, including more signs pointing to the ticket office, Cassidy said.
Knarr said the old Greyhound building hadn’t been great, but at least it was indoors and had bathrooms and other basic facilities for waiting passengers.
The Laivas also remarked on the “emptiness” of the current bus pickup area and the lack of even a “paradero” or bus shelter.
“It’s just the street,” Danko Laiva said, “so it is necessary.”
