DDOT: "No benches for you - you just sit on that overturned garbage can"

[poobert]

Okay, so that isn't exactly what they said.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130502/NEWS/305020159/Bench-students-built-Detroit-bus-stop-might-removed

This reminds me of when some genius in city hall told the Navin Field Grounds Crew [[which mows and maintains the old Tiger Stadium site since the city doesn't) that the site wasn't "zoned for baseball" and kept trying to kick them out of there so it could be the unmaintained, trash-strewn empty lot it was intended to be.

Or remember when the unions started terrorizing the Motor City Mower gang for cutting grass in the city? Why, if they can do it better and faster, then the folks at the union would really be sweating like pigs, wouldn't they? Well, they are now anyway with RTW, so it didn't really matter anyway.

My biggest gripe with city government isn't even the corruption. It is the absolute bureaucratic stupidity. Chicago is corrupt but can at least get things done. Officials in this city are too stupid, uncreative, and blase to actually accomplish anything. We have unbelievable problems and confront them as if it were 1975. Where are we with Belle Isle? Square one. The financial crisis? EM, despite knowing about it for years. This is what happens when you have a bunch of uneducated, provincial people working in city government, elected and as employees. Getting anything done at the City-County building is a nightmare. Getting anything substantial done in this city is impossible.

We need creative solutions like the ones these young people have started. Instead the powers that be would have them call somebody's cousin's never-answered desk phone to get a full voice mailbox. I know how this shit works. Been there, done that.

Meanwhile, your seating during your hour-long wait [[that's if it ever comes) for that dangerous, fart-smellin', rolling shitbox we affectionately call "a bus" around here is an overturned garbage can. Hey, at least you can count how many SMART buses will pass you while you wait. Assholes.

It is like the residency requirement thread. City council will talk about it, but never propose any substantial reforms. If I were mayor, I'd electrocute the lot of them - city council, department heads, horse-shoers - like the McPhailures they all are. Then I'd make them get off their fat asses and put some benches at the bus stops and clean up some of this freaking garbage.

[Danny]

Just move the bench away from the bus stop and leave it on public sidewalk or vacant lot. Those areas can't be removed for public fair reasons.

[Honky Tonk]

Just move the bench away from the bus stop and leave it on public sidewalk or vacant lot. Those areas can't be removed for public fair reasons.

Good call, but the buses might just pass them by because they're not @ the "bus stop". On the flip side, I've seen concrete and steel bus stop benches totally vandalized beyond any kind of use. You really have to be determined to destroy one of those. I'm sure DDOT got tired of replacing them. Who suffers? The people who can't afford automobiles, and take the bus. A SALUTE to Charles Molnar and the young men from Detroit Enterprise Academy for rising to the challenge. Don't stop trying.......

[JBMcB]

I noticed during a recent trip to NYC, that an enormous, 100-yard long subway platform would have one 6-seat bench on it. Most didn't have any. I think planners see seating as something that costs money to maintain and/or something that impedes foot traffic.

No excuses for a bench at a bus stop, though. I think this may be a case of the public doing a better job than the city, and someone in the city feeling embarrassed.

[drjeff]

Does DDOT own the portion of the sidewalk near a bus stop? What authority would they even have to remove a bench near the bus stop sign?

[Detroitnerd]

I just gotta say, that kid Charles Molnar and his friends sound like awesome people. Doing something just to help other people? Seeing a need and wanting to address it? I wish them the best. It's obvious they have some really special qualities; would that more kids were like them.

[Honky Tonk]

The bench is built around the bus stop sign, more then likely to prevent theft or vandalism. They seem to have done a nice job with it. I LOVE the "artsy" look. Attachment 19683Attachment 19684Attachment 19685

[Al Publican]

"Bum bars" on benches in Detroit? I notice more such devices to keep "urban pioneers," as I think of them, from snoozing in public places.

[Honky Tonk]

"Bum bars" on benches in Detroit? I notice more such devices to keep "urban pioneers," as I think of them, from snoozing in public places.

Or give them something to hang onto. The Earth is spinning @ a rapid pace, you know.

[Wesley Mouch]

Poo: I share your anger. The only solution I see it to reduce the size of government. It just doesn't seem that they're capable of doing much right. So let's have them do as little as possible. And then we can make sure they do it right.

As to the bus issue... best thing we could do is eliminate the monopoly held by DDOT and SMART. Allow jitneys to operate. It won't be worse than what we have.

[JenniferL]

They need benches near bus stops. Once you get on the bus [[if it ever comes), it's standing room only.

[MSUguy]

Does DDOT own the portion of the sidewalk near a bus stop? What authority would they even have to remove a bench near the bus stop sign?

It's built around the sign. Even if it wasn't there's probably an ordinance that say DOTT solely decides where benches and shelters go.

[Rocko]

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22...ll-be-replaced

Bench No.3 will be at Henry Ford Hospital, come Monday.



From FOX2 News:

DETROIT [[WJBK) -Students building benches by hand and putting them at bus stops where there is currently no seating say they have been told by city officials to stop.

Most people when they see something they don't like or when they feel like something just isn't right, they just complain about it. They don't turn that passion into a plan. But 22-year-old Charles Molnar and 25-year-old Kyle Bartell did.

"We're filling the void where the city kind of lacks on certain things," Bartell said.

Sadden and sick and tired of seeing people standing or sitting on the ground at the bus stop, many of them older individuals unable to have a seat because there wasn't one, that is until Bartell and Kyle and their team of volunteers from Detroit Enterprise Academy came along and built a bus stop bench of recycled wood. This project was all out of compassion for the people.

"Rebuilding the city with material that was once part of the city," Molnar said.

"We've been getting very good feedback from the general public. People love this. People enjoy it. It's convenient. That's just kind of what's been feeding us," Bartell said.

There is now a second bench at Trumbull and Grand River. We're told this is what happened after the first.

"DDOT does not want our bus stop benches. They said that they did not approve them, and that they're going to start removing them," Molnar said. "My answer to that is we're going to keep putting them out, and for every one that they pick up, there will be two more out there and there will be one where they took it from. We're going to replace it."

Bartell and Molnar are both students at Wayne State University. They told me that they did get approval from someone at DDOT, although it was unofficial. They said they were told they could put them up. DDOT cannot technically approve it, but they won't take them down. They said they will track that person down and make him keep his word.


Read more: http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22...#ixzz2SISYW0fv

[Rocko]

First of all, DDOT will find some way to drag this thing out and in the end, these forward-thinking young minds will get fed up and take their aspirations to another place in the world, thereby depleting Detroit of at least two more people who are actually taking concrete steps to make Detroit a better place.

DDOT doesn't just shoot itself in the foot on a regular basis, it takes one of those semi-automatics and blows its whole freakin foot away. Here, these young guys identified a need in the community and set out to try to fix it because they wanted to help people. The bench shown in the photos looks both useful and durable....you'd need a MFing hatchet to really mess it up bad. Most infrastructure that isn't still hanging on from the first half of the 20th Century in Detroit couldn't stand up to a hatchet. And yet DDOT plans to remove it. My understanding is that the DDOT "adopt-a-shelter" program is basically non-functioning, which in and of itself is a pitty and lost opportunity. Rather than try to develop a partnership and a plan with this program to make the bus experience a little better using in-city skills and reused materials, nope, screw that, the bus stop sign post is just there to lean on for another hour till the next coach lumbers along, right???

Several summers ago, a friend of mine chained a bench up to one of the bus stops at Holy Redeemer on the corner of Vernor and Junction. I don't remember which street it was on. But that corner is a busy one and an important transfer point between two bus routes, and nobody got anything more than a bus stop sign to wait at. I wonder if that bench is still there? It kind of amazes me that the big plastic trash bins placed at each bus stop aren't obliterated. But back to the topic at hand......

I wish these guys every success in their endeavor. The way the benches are built right around the bus stop pole is ingenious - it keeps them from being stolen and lets the driver know that hey, that dazed dude chillin' up the curb from the bus stop sign may not be waiting for my bus, but the lady sitting on the bench certainly is. As they build the benches they should number them - serial numbers of sorts, and then blog about the status of each one as time goes on.

Bing may feel like he's losing popular support with Detroiters over the -$7 Million DDOT lost to SMART earlier this week.....he could gain a lot of credibility back with that same group by ordering DDOT to not only retain the benches in place but help these guys identify what stops to place future benches at.


[[Side note....why does this bus stop sign say "Parking Allowed"? Don't all DDOT bus stop signs say "no standing"?)

[KJ5]

It's built around the sign. Even if it wasn't there's probably an ordinance that say DOTT solely decides where benches and shelters go.

How about the books? Are they okay to be there or is there a law against that, too? This is some Scrooge type behavior by DDOT. They are wrong for this, and they have to know it.

[Cliffy]

How about the books? Are they okay to be there or is there a law against that, too? This is some Scrooge type behavior by DDOT. They are wrong for this, and they have to know it.

Until someone sites on the bench and falls off or a car crashes into it and Geoffrey Feiger is knocking on the door saying why do you have benches that aren't built to any spec and are not official federally approved structures etc... I don't blame DDOT one bit.

[EastsideAl]

Nice idea and fine execution, but my guess is that, sadly, the poster above is probably correct that these unapproved and almost certainly non-spec benches present significant potential for liability exposure problems and legal compliance issues for the city and DDOT.

[cla1945]

Next thing we know, someone will object to the 100 new police cars GIVEN to our police force, as well as the EMS rigs. They'll say something like "Those vehicles don't meet our [[CofD) specs, or the colors aren't exactly the shade we want them", or some other dumb thing our fine leaders will want to object to. What a pity.

[EastsideAl]

I think it's sometimes hard for people who haven't worked in government, and especially in planning, procurement, or legal departments to understand and appreciate issues surrounding liability considerations and legal and regulatory compliance [[witness the recent outrage over the replacement of sidewalk corner curb cuts in Detroit, which was mandated to meet updated federal regulations).

Part of the reason for the lack of new bus shelters and benches in Detroit is that the structures themselves pose liability exposure issues for the city [[for instance, once one has been hit by a car the city has to take that likelihood into account in citing and constructing any replacement, because they could be successfully sued by anyone harmed if this now "foreseeable event" recurs). And any new shelters will cost more than the old ones, due to the need to meet new federal ADA and other regulatory guidelines, which is something the cash-strapped city can ill-afford.

So, however well-intentioned the homemade benches are, I suspect that a large part of DDOT's objections to them come from these considerations. And the simple legal fact that if DDOT knowingly leaves the benches in place they could be found liable for anything that happens on or around them, or penalized for their lack of compliance to current regulatory standards. In other words, they would actually be remiss in their public duties if they did not move to remove them.

Still, I think the bench program could be a useful undertaking if it does finally call the authorities out in front of the public and perhaps force the city and DDOT to take some actions to address the issue of seating at bus stops. But these guys had probably better be prepared to be arrested in order to prove their point if they continue.

For a view into the sort of issues that surround such deceptively simple-seeming decisions, here is a rather lengthy article on the legal issues involved in citing and maintaining bus stops:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs...crp_lrd_24.pdf

[poobert]

Sorry, not giving ground to DDOT on this one. There are garbage cans at many, if not most, bus stops, which function as de facto benches. People eventually say, "fuck it, it's seven degrees out and I'm standing here and my piece of shit bus is 30 minutes late, I'm knocking over this garbage can so I can at least sit my ass down" Garbage is then strewn everywhere and you have someone sitting on a garbage can - any supposed liability has been there for a while, and DDOT didn't care.

If DDOT had actually been doing its job and providing more than a pole stuck in the mud for passengers to wait at [[sometimes forever), it wouldn't be dealing with this in the first place, now would it?

Danny isn't really off base here. The group could go rogue and start putting the benches on vacant lots adjacent to the bus stops. Provided the city didn't own the land, they couldn't touch the fucking things.

Send an inspector out to inspect the bench for rusty nails and approve it. It's a bench, not the freaking Coliseum. Hold a block party with the kids and some bus drivers or some crap and make hay with it. I don't know why everyone in this administration has to be so damn obtuse and/or retarded.

Just some bureaucrat trying to justify having a job. I wonder what Angelica Jones has ever done for anybody, ever.

[Zug]

Cliffy & Al have points.

As sad as it is, many great ideas just do not meet the legal and/or regulatory standards expected. Someone from the school should have had the sense to ask permission from DDOT before they even started. Unfortunately, these benches may be unsafe or difficult to maintain & DDOT may not want to be responsible for them. For example, I could easily see a kid get injured by the big plastic door with sharp corners. Or, once winter comes, I could easily see the bench getting severely damaged by plows pushing snow right at them [[I remember seeing where plows ruined DDOT shelters by pushing snow into them).

Don't get me wrong, I think these kids are great. However, an adult should have done some thinking. And unfortunately, not everyone will want to go along with ideas that help others. As a silly analogy, if I set up a hundred tents in Hart Plaza so the homeless aren't exposed to the elements, it wouldn't surprise me if the city wanted a say [[or asked me to remove them). Would that make the city "heartless" or me irresponsible for not asking first?

[WaCoTS]

the bus stop at W Jefferson & Rademacher has a "seat"...which is actually just a section of a log from when i chopped down a tree that was growing out of the old fort stables...it's apparently been a big hit for years.

[Dumpling]

Am pleased to be able to report that River Rouge has installed at least
four benches for the comfort of those waiting for their DDOt or SMART
bus. [[This is in addition to the extra street lights vs Detroit, the snow plowing, and the closely watched 25 mph speed limit mentioned in an
earlier post). A New Yorker can theoretically visit River Rouge by taking a SMART bus there directly from DTW, no car rental required.

[Dumpling]

I take the Schaefer bus to work very occasionally. There was a bench at
the corner of Schaefer and W. Warren in East Dearborn. My fellow passengers and I were told by the bus driver that we couldn't sit there because the bus stop sign was way down by the Fifth Third Bank.
Hopefully the bench and sign are closer together now these days!

[KJ5]

Until someone sites on the bench and falls off or a car crashes into it and Geoffrey Feiger is knocking on the door saying why do you have benches that aren't built to any spec and are not official federally approved structures etc... I don't blame DDOT one bit.

It's a bench! If somebody falls off or hits it with their car it's THEIR fault! The noxious fumes belching from DDOT buses are surely more dangerous than a simple bench.