A bus shelter at the Warlick Family YMCA on Robinwood Road doesn’t have the same look as other bus shelters in the Gastonia Transit system. Etched in the tempered glass of the new prototype are City and YMCA logos as well as trees and recreational scenes.
“We’re going away from the standard, plexi-glass shelter to a more modern look and higher quality,” said Assistant City Manager Flip Bombardier. “Like our new LED street lights, it will be a multi-year effort to evolve to this new look in our bus shelters citywide. Typically we try to budget for two or three new or replacement bus shelters each year, and it’s also important to note that we are reimbursed 80 percent through the Federal Transit Administration.”
The themed bus shelter designs will likely vary throughout the City transit system’s 27 bus stops and could be based on locations like scenes of the Loray Mill or Crowder’s Mountain in West Gastonia, Bombardier said. In and around the core Downtown area, shelter designs could include City and County logos, and picturesque graphics that represent the unique history of Gastonia and Gaston County. Shelters at the City’s recreation centers could offer other unique design opportunities.
“We use internal people with graphic design talent,” Bombardier said. “For the shelter at the Y, our staff prepared choices of designs, and all parties really liked the one that ended up being there.”
The first themed bus shelter at the YMCA is part of an on-going partnership between the City and the Y for the new Robinwood Road facility. The cooperative effort included participation in the cost of the main driveway to accommodate the larger buses. The City, through Keep Gastonia Beautiful, also partnered with the Y in the installation of street trees along Robinwood Road.
