[mistursinistur]

I'm building wooden benches for bus and light rail stops in my neighborhood.

Lots of riders are elderly and find themselves sitting on the curb, feet in the gutter, as they wait for transit. Studies suggest that perceived wait time increases by 30%+ when riders are forced to stand while they wait. There's no cheaper way to shave several minutes off of perceived trip time, for every trip.

Inspired by https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam....

[spyke112]

I have such a hard time relating to this. In Denmark I feel like 95% of bus stops have some sort of bench, and a lot of them has like a small shed, to get out of the rain in bad weather. It's wild to think that citizens should be adding those themselves. But I guess there's no profit in adding benches to each stop as a bus company.

[sangnoir]

> It's wild to think that citizens should be adding those themselves.

Antipathy towards the homeless ends up harming other citizens: "If we add a bench there, the homeless could sit/sleep there, and we'd have to look at them". The result is lack of benches, or ones that are incredibly user-hostile.

[wishinghand]

I used to live in Southern California. Many bus stops have no bench and no weather protection. It can get brutally hot without shade, and since it's a drought area, lots of people get caught without clothing for inclement weather. I think it almost criminal that there's at least no covering for these stops, much less a bench to help wait out such conditions.

[nicbou]

I love this.

I've been through so many places where it's nearly impossible to find a place to sit for free. You just walk and walk and walk, until you're ready to spend 4-6$ to sit inside a business.

Benches have no economic value. You just sit there for free - you loiter - for as long as you want with no expectation of buying anything. Yet they provide undeniable value to their users.

I've made a habit of mapping benches on Open Street Map. Have you considered adding yours there, or updating the bus stops accordingly? StreetComplete lets you do it easily.

[JNRowe]

I really shouldn't ask and then pick favourites, but between you and me I love this.

Now that you've made me think about this, I can only place one bus stop with a half covered "perch" within a few kilometres of my house. All of the others are just a sign in the grass verge, or a wind exposed perspex cover in a couple of cases. Sadly, it hadn't even occurred to me how unhelpful that it is for many of the people that rely on busses.

[tsol]

I'm just curious about the logistics-- so are you allowed to just put a bench down at bus stops, legally? No one removes them?

[eb0la]

IMHO you succeeded the moment you installed the first bench.

[olek]

Good to know there are decent and kind people out there :-)