User:Melkom/54

The 54 bus service is one of the oldest consistently operated bus services in Frankfurt. It connects the western neighborhoods of Frankfurt following roughly the river Main.

Route
Currently the primary route variant of the 54 bus service is about 16 km long. The 54 serves 32 stops on this route in east to west direction and 31 stops in west to east direction and it takes about 48 minutes. The average speed is 20 km/h and the average time per stop is 80 seconds.

Variants

 * 1) Zuckschwerdtstraße/Bolongaropalast ↔ Sindlingen Friedhof
 * 2) Griesheim Bahnhof ↔ Sindlingen Friedhof

Connected Services
The 54 services lies in a cluster with other bus services of the 50s series (except for 52, 56 and 57). That cluster is centered around Höchst. The most similar service is the 59, which also runs along the 54 in Höchst and Griesheim.

1928 – 1940: D service
After the incorporation of the western suburbs into Frankfurt, a new bus service was created. It started in the east at the old airport Rebstock at the terminus Flugplatz (today Mönchhofstraße). This was at the same time the western terminus of a few tram line services. At Waldschulstraße, the D then branched into two separate route, one through central Griesheim, another one along the Mainzer Landstraße. The two branches merged again at the Nied Kirche stop and continued through Nied, Höchst, Sindlingen to the western terminus in Zeilsheim. When the tram line was extended further to the west in 1935, both branches of the D service were cut back to the new tram terminus at Nied Kirche.

1940 – 1954: From Nied to Zeilsheim
The 54 was created in 1940 from the previous D service with the same route. It started at the loop of terminus of the Mainzer Landstraße tram line at Nied Kirche (Nied church), which was served by 14 and 23E services at that time. It continued westwards via Bolongarostraße to Höchst, where it stopped at Bolongaropalast and the train station of this neighborhood. It then ran through the large factory compound of IG Farben to arrive Sindlingen at the western side. From Sindlingen, the service continued to the north to the Sindlingen station and its terminus in the neighborhood Zeilsheim. During war time, the service was successively restricted and shortened until it was eventually discontinued in the spring of 1945. Operation on the eastern part resumed later that year connecting the tram terminus with the train station in Höchst as the only bus service in Frankfurt. The western part resumed service in 1946 to the former IG Farben compound and 1948 again to Zeilsheim.

In 1952, an additional route variant was introduced. In the western part the 54A connected Zeilsheim and Höchst directly via Pfaffenwiese, a route that only one year earlier was used by the 58 service. The eastern part of this branch was extended further to the northeast with a new stop at Nied station, creating a new terminus for this service at the railroad workers' settlement in the outskirts of Nied. In the same year, the tram terminus was relocated further west to Zuckschwerdtstraße in Höchst. The new tram loop would become the new eastern end of the regular 54 service, which therefore was cut back. Both service, 54 and 54A, only shared the route through Höchst and the common western terminus in Zeilsheim.

1954 - 1980: From Höchst to Sindlingen
One of the biggest change in the routing of bus service 54 was the closure of the Hoechst AG compound. It could no longer take the direct route from Höchst to Sindlingen. Instead, the 54 used the western branch of the 54E that was simultaneously discontinued. Hence, the new 54 started at Zuckschwerdtstraße, stopped at Höchst Bahnhof, followed the new Hoechster-Farben-Straße along the nortern wall around the Hoechst AG compound, made a turn to the north towards Zeilsheim, where it ended at the Alt-Zeilsheim (today Kirche Zeilsheim) terminus. In 1957, the service was extended southwards along the Westhöchster Straße towards its new terminus Richard-Weidlich-Platz (today: Sindlingen Bahnhof). This section is part of the original route from 1940, but did not connect the southern parts of Sindlingen, that were originally served by the 54, a situation that remained for the next 30 years. A small change to the service occurred in 1968. Instead of using the Hoechster-Farben-Straße, the service now ran via the parallel Silostraße with a stop at the public swimming pool (today Silobad/Ballsporthalle). Another change was made at the western end of the service. It was extended to the west into the Ferdinand-Hofmann-Siedlung, a densely populated housing estate, with a new terminus Hugo-Kallenbach-Straße.

1980 - 2006: The new underpass and the incorporation of the 53 service
Until 1980, the 54 only served the northern part of Sindlingen, while the 53 service only served the southern part. When construction for the street underpass at the Sindlingen station started, the 54 could no longer reach the station and its terminus Hugo-Kallenbach-Straße. For the construction time, the 54 had to end at Annabergstraße in Zeilsheim. The service to northern Sindlingen returned in 1982, but it got its prior terminus with the new name Sindlingen Bahnhof (before Richard-Weidlich-Platz).

The new underpass made it possible to cross the busy railroad line at the station without having to wait at a level crossing. An extension southwards across the railroad was realized in 1989 to Hoechst AG Tor West (today Industriepark Höchst Tor West). In 1997 the former bus service 53 was almost fully integrated into the 54. In Sindlingen, the 54 now served the western part of the 53 from Hoechst AG Tor West along its pre-1955 route through southern Sindlingen to its new terminus Sindlingen Friedhof, connecting northern and southern Sindlingen again after over 40 years.

Simultaneously, the eastern part of 53 was integrated as well. The 54 now ran as in 1940 through western Nied to its old terminus Nied Kirche and continued southwards to the river bank of the Main. It ran along the Main passing another factory compound of Hoechst AG and southern Griesheim, eventually reaching the new terminus Griesheim Bahnhof, a route that was already served as an alternative branch of the D service until 1935.

2006 - 2020: New bus concept for Zeilsheim
Just before the opening of Frankfurt Zeilsheim station, a revised bus concept for the neighborhood was implemented. The existing bus services 50 and 51, that only served a part of Zeilsheim, were pulled back to Höchst and the 54 was pulled back to a new bus terminus at the mentioned S-Bahn station. Instead the 53 service was reactivated to serve the same route as the 54 did before between Zeilsheim and Sindlingen. In Zeilsheim, these services had exactly the same route. In 2013, the 54 changed back to its previous route with the terminus at Sindlingen Friedhof while the 53 now terminates in Zeilsheim.

Since 2020: Discontinuation of the service in Zeilsheim and extension to the north-east
With the introduction of the new metrobus concept for Frankfurt in 2020, the 54 service does no longer serve the stops in Zeilsheim. These stops are served by the new M55 bus service. The 54 will instead use the direct route from Sindlingen to Höchst that was previously served by 55 service.

For the timetable change in winter 2021, the 54 was further extended to the north-east. After the prior terminal stop Griesheim Bahnhof, it follows the course of the 59 service along Waldschulstraße and diverges at Neufeld by continuing to the east through the Rebstock and towards the new terminal Leonardo-da-Vinci-Allee. This change was reverted again in winter 2023, after a bridge on that route had to be demolished for safety reasons.