Hampden’s bus benches, removed because of loiterers, missed by riders
First guerrilla crosswalks, now a guerrilla bus bench.
Above: Donna Robertson, who rides the Hampden Shuttle to and from work, sitting on the curb where a bench used to be.
I live in Hampden. Last Monday, I ran out the door to catch the bus on the 900 block of 36th street, better known as “The Avenue.” Miraculously, I caught the bus as planned and got to my meeting on time. (The 27 line is ridiculously difficult, infrequent and often runs late.)
In the few minutes before the bus arrived, I talked to a man, Tyrone Lewis, who was also waiting for the bus.
“Wasn’t there a bench here?” I said, looking around.
“Yes, there was,” he said. We both wondered why and when it had been taken away. We were angry that it had been.
According to a March 2010 story in The Baltimore Messenger, two benches — one in front of Royal Farms and one, where I waited, across the street — had been taken away by the Hampden Village Merchants Association because of a problem with “loiterers.”
The next morning I went back to the bus stop and I talked to the first person I met waiting for the bus, Richard Nelson. He was leaning against the bus stop sign and using a cane. He wanted to know when the bus was coming. I told him it had just come about 15 minutes ago and usually came every 45 minutes.
“Oh no!” he replied, “I can’t wait 30 minutes.”
Richard Nelson at Hampden bus stop where bench used to be. (Photo by China Martens)
I told him I was going to go home and get a chair to put it next to the bus stop, but when I returned he wasn’t there. I went into a nearby business, Sprout, to ask the owner his take on the situation.
“Of course there should be a bench there – it is a bus stop!” said Alan Kolb. He felt it was very rude to remove it. “Where would people sit? What’s next? Will they take away the trashcan on the corner next?”
“My Mom is Sitting in the Gutter!”
I went back outside and was pleased to see that the old kitchen chair, which I had placed by the bus stop, was being used by a pleasant woman named Nora who was waiting for the bus.
She said she could stand, but she really shouldn’t since it is not good for her. She would pay for it later if she did, she said. She had just come from the doctor’s office across the street. She rides the bus to her office every two weeks.
I asked her, “Have you ever had a problem with this bench being here?”
A woman sitting in the chair Martens put at the stop. (Photo by China Martens)
“Well, the only problem I ever thought about it was that they should have a cover for when it rains or during bad weather,” she said. “This is a nice neighborhood. And we are taxpayers! We should be able to have covered benches to wait in.”
I asked her more pointedly, if she had ever had problems with troublesome loiters who wouldn’t let her use the bench.
“No, I didn’t,” she answered, “they would get up and offer me the seat, ‘Miss, you want to sit down?’ very courteously.”
The office manager at Nora’s doctor’s office told me that they had no problem with having a bench for the bus on this block. She said she supports the bench being put back because it would help their patients.
Donna Robertson, who was waiting for the bus in front of Royal Farms, told me that she works in Hampden, lives in Remington, and uses the Hampden Shuttle everyday.
“My mom is sitting in the gutter, it’s not right,” her son said, as we talked.
Fights and a Stabbing
The president of the Merchants Association, Benn Ray, told me the benches were removed about a week ago, after a long public process that started several years before that.
The Association heard complaints about groups of youths fighting (and in particular a stabbing that occurred in Royal Farms) and of other groups of people, such as addicts, congregating. These two benches were seen as problematic because people were sleeping there or nodding off, harassing folks who were walking, or gathering for various illegal activities.
The police said they could do nothing about it, because if they told people to move on, then the people could say that they were waiting for the bus.
China's do-it-yourself bus bench (aka a kitchen chair) eventually disappeared. (Photo by China Martens)
Apparently, it took a year of nagging the city – just as it had to get The Avenue’s cross-walks repainted – to finally get the benches removed. (The cross-walks were put in after Hampden-ites, fed-up with waiting for the city, painted the lines in themselves with hardware store spray paint.)
Ironically, the problems that led to the decision to remove the benches are not as bad now as they were when the process started.
The benches were originally installed by the predecessor organization to the Merchants Association, with money the organization had received through the city’s Main Streets Program and used for new streetlights and sidewalk paving, as well as benches.
So it was the Association that decided to remove them, after meeting with Royal Farms, Baltimore City Police, Maryland Public Transportation and some city council members, Benn said.
He said that those who made the decision to remove the bus benches realized there would be problems, especially for the elderly and people with disabilities who are reliant on public transportation, and while they regretted that, but could see no other solutions.
“We did this reluctantly. Nobody wants to make people stand,” Ray said. “If somebody knows another way to fix this, we’d be glad to hear about it.”
I hope we can find a solution. I feel we must grow our imagination to come up with more alternatives. Should the merchants who attend meetings be completely in control of bus benches?
Shouldn’t a meeting be held to accommodate other stakeholders in the community such as those who have to rely upon public transportation?
I believe the voices of those who used this bench need to be listened to. We all need a place to sit.
I ask anyone who hasn’t experienced having to rely on Baltimore public transportation to try waiting up to an hour at a time for a bus that often runs irregularly, and then decide how important a bus stop bench is.