DETROIT — The bus stop at the corner of Woodward and Grand Boulevard is, sources confirmed Wednesday, an excellent place to wait for the 53 southbound, as well as, statistically speaking, a mugging.
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The stop, which serves approximately 340 riders per day, features a covered shelter, a functioning bench, an up-to-date schedule display, and, per city crime data, a 41% chance of being robbed at knifepoint if you are standing there alone between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Both amenities, sources confirmed, are considered by regular riders to be dependable.
“The bus runs every twelve minutes,” said a 44-year-old hospital billing clerk who has used the stop since 2011, seated on the bench Wednesday evening. “The mugging is more of a, like, forty-minute average. But you can basically count on both.”
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The clerk, who has been mugged at the stop three times in the past six years, said the timing has generally been reasonable.
“They usually come between the buses,” she said. “Which I appreciate. Because if the bus is coming, they’ll usually wait until you’re on it, or they’ll skip you. They’re professionals. They read the schedule too.”
The stop is, sources confirmed, one of the highest-performing transit access points in the entire city of Detroit — both in terms of ridership volume and, per Detroit Police Department data, per capita robbery incidence.
“It’s a great stop,” said a DDOT spokesperson in a lanyard and quarter-zip. “Highly utilized. Well maintained. The shelter roof was replaced last year. The bench is bolted down. The schedule is accurate. We’re very proud of it.”
He was asked about the mugging statistics.
“Those are also accurate,” he said.
The stop’s popularity with muggers has been attributed, per one criminal-justice researcher who requested anonymity because she does not want to be quoted advising muggers, to “excellent visibility of oncoming targets,” “a well-lit sidewalk that allows for quick identification of phones and jewelry,” and “an easy vehicular escape route via the adjacent one-way.”
“It’s a well-designed piece of infrastructure,” she said. “From every angle.”
The clerk, meanwhile, said she has developed what she described as “a real routine” for using the stop. She carries a small decoy phone. She wears an inexpensive watch on her left wrist and nothing on her right. She keeps twenty dollars in a specific pocket that she is willing to lose, and everything else in a separate pocket that she is not.
“You can still get robbed,” she said. “But you can, like, manage the outcome. The trick is to give them something. If you give them nothing, they get frustrated. If you give them twenty bucks, they usually leave. It’s like a tip.”
She was asked whether she had considered taking a different route.
She thought about it.
“The 53 is the fastest,” she said. “It gets me to work in eighteen minutes. The alternative is a transfer at Grand Circus. I don’t want to do a transfer.”
She paused.
“I’ll take the mugging,” she said.
The city, sources confirmed, has no plans to change anything about the stop.
The 53, at press time, was three minutes out.
A man in a gray hooded sweatshirt was, sources also confirmed, exactly one minute out.
The clerk had, sources further confirmed, already located her twenty.