Earlier this year, a group of transit advocates called the Better Bus Coalition began doing what the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority hadn’t: placing self-constructed benches at local bus stops that did not have them.
The benches, often painted bright blue and built from sturdy wood planks, began popping up in Northside, Clifton, Price Hill, Hyde Park and other neighborhoods with busy stops that had no places for riders to sit. The effort generated local media coverage — including from CityBeat — and even notice from national urban issues sites like nextcity.org.
Even without reading the headline of this article, you may have been able to anticipate what would come next: issues around compliance with city rules for the benches placed in public right-of-way. That’s especially true in Cincinnati, where the city has fought a decade-plus-long battle with companies that make money putting ads on bus benches that may or may not be structurally sound or aesthetically pleasing.
And indeed, Better Bus Co. President Cam Hardy yesterday tweeted that the City of Cincinnati had contacted him about the benches.
“I just got off the phone with the city law department,” he wrote. “We’ve made so many headlines with the benches that they can no longer pretend they don’t exist. We are about to be fined by the city for our benches.”
In another tweet, Hardy went on to say that he is working with the office of Cincinnati City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld on changing the city’s laws around permits for bus benches.
“The Better Bus Coalition has been a leader in working to improve our bus system for all who use it,” Sittenfeld wrote in a statement today. “I am already actively working with the Better Bus Coalition and our City Law Department to create a legislative solution that allows for non-commercial benches at our bus stops, so that we’re giving riders — especially the elderly — a suitable place to sit. The Better Bus Coalition is, unquestionably, a force for good, and we will make sure we harness their efforts in a way that is compliant.”
City officials acknowledge they’ve talked with Hardy about the benches, but say they’re supportive of his efforts. The rub is that the city has gone after for-profit companies that placed benches with ads on them in the past, officials say. The city says it needs to stay consistent, and that the Better Bus Co. needs to get permits.
“The City of Cincinnati reached out to the Better Bus Coalition to discuss the benches they have placed at various bus stops across Cincinnati and presumably the Greater Cincinnati region,” the city wrote in a statement. “The conversation was positive and focused on cooperation, though the City made clear that the Better Bus Coalition needs to have the necessary permits for benches they have placed and plan to place in the City of Cincinnati. Also, for the safety of residents and liability reasons, the Better Bus Coalition needs to ensure their benches are placed in safe locations and are structurally safe in accordance with the Cincinnati Municipal Code. As a general matter, the City supports the Better Bus Coalition’s goal of providing more safe and comfortable benches for public transit users.
“If the City were to allow unauthorized benches to remain indefinitely in the public right-of-way, it would embolden companies that for many years have been placing poorly constructed and illegal advertising benches on City sidewalks. It is important that good intentions don’t have unintended consequences for the City’s years-long effort (including ongoing litigation) to ensure that all structures and street furniture placed on our sidewalks have been reviewed by the City from safety, pedestrian access and liability perspectives.”
Cincinnati’s convoluted fight over bus benches goes back to 2006, when city council rescinded a decade-old ordinance allowing advertising companies like Bench Billboard Co. to place benches with ads in the public right-of-way. A federal judge batted down that ordinance, citing free speech concerns with the law. The city, undeterred and claiming the benches were unsafe, unsightly and a pain for pedestrians, passed another ordinance three years later banning advertising on the benches in the public right-of-way. By 2013, the city began citing and removing the privately-owned benches. Bench Billboard Co. lost a lawsuit against the city a couple years later, and the city eventually scooped up roughly 70 benches in neighborhoods like Camp Washington, Clifton and Westwood.
This, of course, led to a backlash from bus riders, and the city eventually slowed its bus bench removal efforts. In 2016, as it sought funding revenue for the streetcar, council once again tweaked the law, allowing advertising on benches and at transit stops. The catch: that advertising could only be overseen by the transit authority. SORTA contracted with a company, Clean Zone Marketing, to provide 60 new benches and 20 bus shelters with ads. That contract was later terminated, however.
Today, many Cincinnati bus stops are still without benches.
“Our discussions have been positive,” Hardy says of his talks with the city. “I want to acknowledge that. I don’t think they’re coming at us trying to shut us down. But the city has been slowly removing benches since I was a kid. We are a grassroots organization trying to provide a solution. One of the things I don’t like about government is that it moves too slow sometimes. We’re going to make sure this stays in the public eye.”
Hardy says the city’s law office did mention fines, but that they did not say how many benches might be cited or what the cost would be. He points out that the Better Bus Co. isn’t trying to turn a profit and says the group shouldn’t have to go through an onerous permitting process that would make providing the donor-funded benches “an uphill battle.”
“We’re not making money,” he says. “The only things we’re trying to gain are places to sit for people waiting for the buses.”
This article appears in Oct 3-10, 2018.
