A bench made as a part of the renegade seating program.
Image Credit: Okanagan Transit Alliance
September 12, 2023 - 2:33 PM
Neela Rader is taking matters into their own hands and installing benches at bus stops around Kelowna.
Currently, it costs $2,489 to get a bus stop bench installed through BC Transit.
Rader decided they could do it for cheaper, so they helped start the "renegade seating program" as part of the Okanagan Transit Alliance. The alliance is a new non-profit focused on fighting for better transit in the region.
“It’s absolutely necessary, this region is expanding. Kelowna wants to be a big city, and we have a housing crisis, poverty crisis constantly going on,” Rader says. “A lot of people don’t think these things go together but they are intrinsically linked.”
The renegade seating program is one aspect of the alliance’s efforts to improve transit in Kelowna.
Rader and other volunteers are building benches using donations and installing them at bus stops around the city.
“It’s an easy way to make transit more accessible and comfortable,” Rader says.
The seating program started last Friday, Sept. 8, so Rader and the alliance have only put in two benches so far. They plan on putting in as many as they can as long as financial and material donations keep coming in.
Public transportation in the Okanagan is contracted out to TransDev, a French private company. TransDev controls everything about public transit in Kelowna and Rader says the seating program is a way to take some control back.
“We need transit to be controlled by the people who use it with the interest of people who use it in mind,” Rader says.
The alliance will be at the climate change activist assembly at Kelowna city hall this Friday at 4 p.m. They are encouraging people to come and speak with them about improving transit in the Okanagan.
To sign an Okanagan Transit Alliance petition, go here.
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