A bench is a basic bus stop amenity, but many stops on Los Angeles’ Eastside lack them. One resident took on the task of putting in benches himself.

An anonymous artist is building and installing benches at bus stops throughout Los Angeles Eastside neighborhoods. These are stops where there is little else than a pole in the dirt with a sign at the stop, as is evident from Carolina A. Miranda’s description of one:
Then there is the complete lack of amenities: no shelter, no landscaping — and no place to sit. Unless you count the fragments of tarmac that someone has thoughtfully arranged into an improvised stool at the base of a commercial billboard nearby.
The artist experienced the challenges of traveling by bus a couple years ago when he had knee problems and had to wait at a stop with no bench. About a year ago, he started installing the wooden benches by attaching them to the solitary poles, and he has put in over a dozen so far.
Bus stop benches are part of a bureaucratic maze that involves the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority but also a host of other agencies and entities, including local governments, the Los Angeles City Council, the Department of Public Works, and private street-furniture contractors. The result is that getting something like a simple bench approved and installed is a slow-moving logistical nightmare.
Miranda says that the rogue benches are being used. “Some of his benches have become part of the fabric of the city — sat on and rained on, captured on Google Street View and even vandalized. Scrawled in tidy handwriting on one bench was, ‘i love it, thank you,’ punctuated by a small heart.”
Others, unfortunately, have disappeared or been destroyed, reports Miranda:
Not five days after I watched the artist install his bench at Valley and Soto — the second one he has installed there — it was gone. Was it the city? Was it a random dude with a crowbar? Is there someone with a deep-seated enmity toward public seating reporting them as garbage to 311?
Still, she reports that he plans to continue to leave benches in these otherwise overlooked voids of the Los Angeles transit network.
FULL STORY: Meet the anonymous artist installing bus benches at neglected stops on L.A.’s Eastside

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Map: Where Senate Republicans Want to Sell Your Public Lands
For public land advocates, the Senate Republicans’ proposal to sell millions of acres of public land in the West is “the biggest fight of their careers.”

Restaurant Patios Were a Pandemic Win — Why Were They so Hard to Keep?
Social distancing requirements and changes in travel patterns prompted cities to pilot new uses for street and sidewalk space. Then it got complicated.

Platform Pilsner: Vancouver Transit Agency Releases... a Beer?
TransLink will receive a portion of every sale of the four-pack.

Toronto Weighs Cheaper Transit, Parking Hikes for Major Events
Special event rates would take effect during large festivals, sports games and concerts to ‘discourage driving, manage congestion and free up space for transit.”

Berlin to Consider Car-Free Zone Larger Than Manhattan
The area bound by the 22-mile Ringbahn would still allow 12 uses of a private automobile per year per person, and several other exemptions.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
JM Goldson LLC
Custer County Colorado
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Claremont
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)