Snapshots: Bus Stop Furniture in Small-Town Coastal BC
Tags: heritage, snapshot, transit, Transportation
Funding public transit service and infrastructure is a challenge anywhere, but transit providers in small towns and rural areas have even fewer resources to work with. In my travels through small-town British Columbia, I’ve been continually amazed at the resourcefulness demonstrated at bus stops.
Along the Sunshine Coast Highway, where the first photo was taken, bus stops are furnished with every imaginable kind of seating by the people who use them. Lawn chairs are the most common bus stop furniture, but old kitchen chairs are also a favourite design solution. Sechelt is a District Municipality: to qualify for this designation, the incorporated area must be greater than 8 square kilometers in size and have an average population density of fewer than 5 persons per hectare. This large size and low density are likely related to the simple character of the Sechelt’s public transportation infrastructure.
Some agencies do manage to provide attractive, functional and even branded transit stop furniture like the above example from the Village of Cumberland (pop. 3,000) on Vancouver Island. The bus stop design shown above is inspired by coal carts, reflecting the village’s history as a mining town. Cumberland’s compact centre boasts a wealth of well-maintained heritage buildings that attract plenty of visitors.The importance of this local identity and image to the tourism industry could have influenced the decision to invest in the coal cart bus stop seating.
Not shown here, the town of Powell River (pop. 13,000) demonstrates a wide variety of bus stop designs. The local transit agency is able to collect some revenue from advertisements on bus stop benches. The utilitarian benches with plastic advertisement sleeves seem to appear at the most well-used stops. Other stops display painted wooden benches donated by the local Kiwanis club. Still others are furnished with lawn chairs left by private citizens; these are sometimes secured to the bus stop signpost with a lock and chain.
While big cities can showcase designer transit stops that are incredible works of art, I am more amazed at the energy invested in simple small-town bus stops. Whether bus stop furniture is provided by the transit agency, by volunteer organizations or by creative private citizens, having somewhere to sit while waiting for the bus is clearly a high priority for riders!
