Courtesy / Michael D. Wilson, Creative Portland
Ebenezer Akakpo stands next to his work at a bus stop on Congress Street, Portland.
April 14, 2022
Portland battles Boston in show-down of the bus shelters
Courtesy / Michael D. Wilson, Creative Portland
A creative makeover of a bus stop in downtown Portland, designed by artist Ebenezer Akakpo, was leading a Boston contender in a national poll to become American's "best" on Friday.
By William Hall
Portland is plying the last leg on the route to becoming America’s Best Bus Stop Champion.
After beating out three others across the U.S., the city faces Boston in a transit shelter show-down, organized by a nonprofit transportation advocacy and media group, Streetsblog USA.
There's no lucrative prize, just bragging rights. And perhaps national attention for Maine and its largest city, which have been working to beef up local transit. The state recently received $48 million in federal funds to improve bus, rail and ferry services, representing over two dozen transit providers.
The Streetsblog competition began in March and has asked the public to vote in a series of online polls for their favorite bus stops. Voting in the final round of Portland vs. Boston began last week and concludes Friday at 10 a.m. Portland previously vanquished Baltimore, Norwalk, Conn., and Juneau, Alaska.
The bus stop in downtown Portland, at 519 Congress St., is the work of Ebenezer Akakpo, a local jewelry designer and multidisciplinary artist.
Akakpo designed the powder-coated steel panels that line the shelter, displaying traditional Ghanian Adinkra symbols for “hope” and “friendship” — Akakpo immigrated from Ghana to attend the Maine College of Art, just across the street.
The installation was sponsored by the Creative Bus Shelter Program, a joint initiative of the city’s arts agency, Creative Portland, with transit provider Greater Portland Metro and the Greater Portland Council of Governments.
With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the program began in 2020 and has provided grants to make over eight stops using local creative works. Businesses have also chipped in cash and in-kind support — including Akakpo’s laser-cut steel panels, which received finish from Portland Industrial Coatings in Scarborough.
Four of the stops have already been redone and four more are set to debut this summer. Costs of the retrofits so far have been about $80,000, according to Creative Portland Executive Director Dinah Minot.
“The reason that we started this whole initiative is that Portland doesn’t have a lot of public art by local artists,” Minot said on a Streetsblog web page. “At the same time, we wanted to reduce the stigma of riding a bus, as well as attract and increase ridership … In Portland, the people who ride transit are basically people who don’t have cars. We want to change that.”
In describing Portland’s contender among the nation’s top stops, Streetsblog wrote, “Our final America’s Best Bus Stop battle is a bit of a David and Goliath story … though our readers might disagree about which stop is really the underdog.”
Boston’s entry, on Walnut Avenue in that city’s Roxbury neighborhood, was recently renovated at a cost of $500,000. The work was part of an even larger $12 million busway project along nearby Columbus Avenue.
But while Portland’s stop “may seem a little more humble,” Streetsblog wrote, “this small city stop has consistently put up some of the biggest numbers in this contest so far, and their cumulative vote total currently sits at more than twice that of their competitor.”
On Thursday morning, Portland was outpolling Boston with 56% of the vote total, or 2,157 of the 3,818 votes cast.
To cast your own, or for more information, click here.
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