Jamaica Plain Shop Owners Have Variety of Bus Concerns

By Abe Scherzer

On warm days, Leo Putumayo likes to prop open the door of the Jamaica Plain Books & Gifts shop where he works. The only problem: the echoing howl throughout the store when all the city buses stop and start in front of the store.

“They need to fix the break pads,” Putumayo, 23, says as he looks out at the bus stop only feet away from the store’s open door. “There’s a loud screeching whenever the bus stops and when it starts again.”

The 38, 39 and 48 buses all run through Centre Street. The 39 stops about every 10 minutes on weekdays, the 38 about every 20 minutes, and the 48 about every 40 minutes.

Ron Autrey, 52, works at Oncentre Gift Shop, another quiet store on Centre Street. “When a bus goes by, you can hear the breaks, you can hear them screeching,” Autrey says. “It’s like . . .” Autrey searches for the words to describe the sound, but eventually just lowers his head and shakes it dejectedly.

Autrey said a friend who lived on South Huntington Avenue used a sound machine to drown out the noise of the buses.

Mike Bryant, 36, owner of Serene Vibes gift shop on Centre Street, also props open his door so people on the street can hear the soothing, meditative music he plays. Once inside, though, he doesn’t want customers’ experiences ruined by the bus noise. “Sometimes the buses kill the ‘serene vibes’ in here,” Bryant says with a chuckle.

Mark Paringo, 48, an employee at AAA Appliances, does not like that the bus stop take up parking space outside his store.

Putumayo also complains about the exhaust the buses emit. “They need to switch to environmentally friendly fuel,” Putumayo says. “Whenever you’re behind them, there’s just waste in your face.”

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority public affairs department did not return phone calls to comment.

Theo Roussi, 23, a shift manager at Boing! JP’s Toy Shop, says there has been improvements in the public transport on Centre Street. “There was more traffic when the T was here,” Roussi says. A T line running through Centre Street was recently shut down, and the tracks have been removed.

Still, many Centre Street shop workers are demanding change in the way the buses operate. “The thing that bothers me the most about the buses,” Autrey says, “is that they don’t pull all the way over to the side of the street. That backs up traffic, almost as bad as when the T was here.”