Erin Batten-Hicks frequently rides the bus to work, school and other commitments. She often carries everything she needs for the day, including a computer, books, a lunch bag and sometimes a bike helmet or change of clothes for hot days.

A bench at her Durham bus stop gives her a moment of relief.

“Just to put my stuff down and have a load off and be able to wait for the bus with a moment of rest is so helpful,” she said. “And it feels incredible.”

The basic purpose of a bench is simple: to give people a place to sit. But for transit riders, that moment can make a meaningful difference, Batten-Hicks said. Walking to a bus stop in the heat or cold can be tiring, and a bench gives riders a place to pause.

“It makes me feel seen, and I know they make others feel seen as well,” she said.

Batten-Hicks, a Bike Durham board member, is fortunate to have a bus stop near her home with a bench. But many Durham riders do not have the same option. The city has 832 active bus stops, and 70% of them do not have benches, according to city data.

To help fill that gap, Play NC, Bike Durham and Bull City Woodshop launched the “On The Bench” initiative, bringing community members together to build benches for Durham bus stops that lack seating.

Students lend a hand

Students from high schools across the Triangle joined the effort last week at Bull City Woodshop through IMPACT Camp, a program from the Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center that puts students to work with local nonprofits.

Temperatures climbed above 90 degrees Wednesday as students worked at a woodshop with walls open to the outside. Wearing safety goggles and aprons, they measured, cut and assembled pressure-treated pine benches alongside woodshop volunteers and camp counselors.

By 4 p.m., their goggles clogged with sweat and their clothes coated in sawdust, the students had completed four benches and signed their names on the back before volunteers loaded them onto a trailer for delivery.

“It’s really rewarding because maybe if I go to Durham and I see one of those benches, I’ll be like, ‘Hey, at least we’re helping out the community,’” said Daniel Moon, a 16-year-old rising junior at Chapel Hill High School.

“It gives us all insight that these benches don’t come free. They come with labor. … It helps us understand what effort has been put in by the community to help out the community itself.”

A citywide need

Ryan Mentock, president and founder of Play NC, said the idea started with his hobby of woodworking and a Reddit post he saw about Durham bus riders standing for long periods without a place to sit.

“My first thought was, ‘I could build a bench and just set it out there,’” Mentock said.

But turning that idea into a citywide effort meant communicating with the city about requirements for placing benches on public property, including permits, design specifications and potential liability concerns.

Mentock connected with Bike Durham, which had been working toward a similar goal for years, and the groups joined forces with Bull City Woodshop. Volunteers rode buses and used community feedback and ridership data to pinpoint stops without seating.

Currently, 23 benches have been placed at Durham bus stops, including along Fayetteville Street, Holloway Street, Roxboro Street and Dearborn Drive, with about 50 more locations planned.

Organizers have received a $5,000 Durham Community Engagement Mini-Grant and a $4,000 grant from Duke’s Doing Good Employee Giving program to support workshops and more bench placements.

Addressing transit gaps

Many Durham riders rely on public transit as their only way to get around. According to GoDurham’s 2022 onboard survey, 77% of riders reported having no vehicle available to them, up from 65% in 2019.

Riders at stops without benches, and sometimes without sidewalks or shelters, can spend up to 30 minutes waiting beside busy roads in the heat or rain.

“Sometimes it doesn’t have to be the most perfect bench that’s going to last a decade or two decades or three decades,” said Chris Perelstein, a member of the Durham Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Commission who helped build benches earlier this year. “Sometimes people just need a place to sit today.”

Perelstein, a frequent transit and bike rider in Durham, said he hopes the bench project becomes a step toward larger transit improvements.

The community-built benches provide an immediate solution as the city works on larger improvements.

The city told The News & Observer that 18 bus stops are under construction to become ADA-accessible, all of which will include benches. Durham also has more than 200 stops in the design process and aims to improve about 50 stops each year, according to Durham Transportation Director Sean Egan.

“Riders consistently tell us that more seating is important to them, and we support the goal of adding places for people to sit while waiting for the bus,” Egan said.

The nonprofits hope to expand the initiative by creating a program where community members can help maintain and repaint benches. They also plan to invite residents to paint benches after the wood dries to “beautify the neighborhood” while protecting the structures from vandalism, said Andrea Bowens, founder and executive director of Bull City Woodshop.

How to get involved

Build a bench: Bull City Woodshop hosts workshops where participants learn woodworking skills while building benches for Durham bus stops. Participants can also pay $250 to build two benches — one to keep and one donated to the initiative. Current workshops are sold out, but organizers plan to offer more in the future.

Donate: Contributions help cover lumber, materials and installation costs. Organizers estimate each bench costs about $125 to build and install.

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