This week, the Cape Fear Public Transportation Authority, better known as WAVE, and continued the discussion of bus-stop benches — both official and unofficial.
For the past year, the Wilmington chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (ILM-DSA) have been building and installing benches, made by hand from largely recycled materials, at WAVE transit stops. The benches were painted in bright colors and usually featured slogans that aligned with the group’s values.
According to WHQR’s previous report on this, ILM-DSA began building the benches in response to a Port City Daily article that reported only 7% of WAVE’s over 430 stops have amenities of any kind. Some residents complained about the slogans painted on a few of the benches, including criticism of ‘slumlords’ and calls for rent freezes and mass social housing (other benches had more innocuous messages or drawings),…