Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 29, 1993 TAG: 9301290031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
COUNCIL MAY MISS THE BUS ON THIS ONE
Dave Henderson stood up two years ago today and offered to spend $35,000 of his own money to buy 100 benches for Valley Metro bus stops.Henderson agreed to mow grass around the benches, pick up trash and sponge off all the benches daily at his own expense.
The offer was not totally altruistic. Henderson, who owns a Williamson Road sign shop, would reserve the right to sell advertisements for the backrests of the benches. That's where he could earn some money.
No cigarette ads, no beer or liquor ads, and no political blather. The city would get five of the benches to advertise its own causes (Renew Roanoke, Jefferson High School renewal, recycle, etc.).
It sounded like the perfect public-private partnership, a way for government to deflect the cost of providing services to an entrepreneur. Citizens get an added service for free.
And it's a needed service. Valley Metro has about 1,000 bus stops. Half a dozen or so have benches. Drive around town and you'll see a broad swath of humanity - some 5,400 people every day - standing, waiting for a bus.
Benches "make it a little easier and a lot more convenient to ride the bus," says Stephen Mancuso, the general manager of Valley Metro. "They can only help."
Did the city listen to Henderson's offer?
Sure. Councilman William White, scenting revenue, chimed in that the city should be cut into the profits.
Henderson considered that enormous gall.
His bench offer never got off the ground in Roanoke. Eleven pages of the city code are devoted to regulating signs. Henderson's suggestion was so full of common sense that it violated about half of the subchapters.
Within six weeks, the proposal withered and died.
But across the valley those sharpies in Salem were watching. They invited Dave Henderson to float his proposal.
"The older-type folks ride the bus a lot," said Billy Hull, the director of Salem's street department. "We noticed them standing out there holding one or two bags of groceries."
The idea of advertising on the benches conflicted with Salem's sign laws, too - laws designed to protect and serve and require old folks to keep standing.
But Salem, at least, took the next step, buying 36 wrought-iron and wood benches for bus stops.
"We have had nothing but compliments," said Hull.
He said Salem plans to buy a dozen more advertising-less benches.
Henderson, who once set up Mobile, Ala. - a similarly-sized bus system to ours - with benches, says now, two years after his original offer, that he'd still buy, install and maintain the benches.
Council ought to stand and wait for a bus before cutting the idea off at the legs. Or council members ought to keep their eyes open next time they drive through town. See who is required now to stand and wait for the bus.
Old men. Pregnant women. Working-class folks. Toddlers.
They are, you are, we all are, standing on the side of the streets. If someone's been offering a seat for two years at no cost, and all these public transit users - heroes, in their way - are standing, we're at an unforgivable fool's impasse.