Stop Design: Rethinking the Approach to Public Transit's Architecture

Authors

Elizabeth M. Nielsen, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Sharon Kuska

Date of this Version

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture

Major: Architecture

Under the supervision of Professor Sharon Kuska

Lincoln, Nebraska, May 2025

Comments

Copyright 2025, Elizabeth M. Nielsen. Used by permission

Abstract

Public spaces are the foundation of our social health and wellbeing, but are often designed without considering the needs of the public, creating spaces that people do not feel encouraged to use. Just as public space design as a whole often falls short of serving the public, the same can be said for a subset of public space design, public transit stops. While they are public spaces created for the purpose of waiting, their design rarely reflects this.

Well-designed public transit stops are capable of both maintaining existing ridership and drawing in new riders. Most commonly, this design occurs at the scale of the amenity, but design strategies are also applied at the city planning scale. While both scales can be effective if leveraged correctly, this is rarely the case. Instead of considering the needs of the community surrounding each stop, stops are repeated throughout cities with little nuance, resulting the stops that are inadequate to the communities they are intended to serve, failing to accommodate existing riders or serve a purpose to non-riders.

Rather than continuing a failing approach, the thesis proposes an exploration of public transit stop design at the scale of architecture, which has been neglected in the realm of public transit. The thesis suggests that, at this scale, stops should be individually designed based on surrounding context and user needs in order to increase the functionality and importance of the bus stop for a community of riders and non-riders.

First, a literature review examining current design approaches and standards was completed to identify failings of the current approach and the neglect of the architectural scale. Then, a cataloging process of bus stops in Lincoln, Nebraska was conducted to understand the implications of the literature in a built context. Finally, using the city of Lincoln as a case study, a series of architectural bus stops were designed, exploring ideas of site-specific, individually designed bus stops and their impacts on their communities.

Advisor: Sharon Kuska