TYLER, Texas — **EDITOR'S NOTE: All people wishing to donated funds or benches need to go through the City of Tyler due to Federal Transportation Association and American Disabilities Act guidelines.
Tyler native Casey Cobb saw an elderly man sitting on the ground waiting for his bus because there were no bus stop benches.
That's when she took to social media to express her concern regarding the lack of benches at city bus stops.
However, Tyler Transit said this issue is something that hasn't gone unnoticed.
"We're aggressively proactively looking at enhancing our operations and making it better for customers that need the service," said Transit Manager Russ Jackson.
But Jackson said to add benches to every bus stop in the city the cost would be astronomical. That’s why they’ve spread out benches to every other block.
"I felt the need to reach out to the city and maybe get some benches out here," Cobb said.
Cobb says people with disabilities may not be able to stand for a long period of time. The city said there’s a program for that.
"If they can't stand for a long period of time, and they're elderly, it can fall under ADA, we have another system that's called paratransit," Jackson said.
The City of Tyler's ADA Paratransit Service offers door-to-door service for people needing special accommodations. Jackson says in the next year the transit department plans to spend close to $500,000 to $600,000 for these services.
But Cobb hopes to make a difference sooner.
"The plan will be to accept donations, some of us are going to donate personally, to get these benches and to actually place them at the bus stop where they're needed," Cobb said.
However, according to Jackson, the transit department has to approve and place them at the sites.
“Well, legally, they can't do that," said Jackson."And FDA won't allow us to do that. One it's it's got to be a bench [like this that] is secure, and it's in an ADA environment. If someone was to sit on that chair and fall, or if you have a chair that has just a single leg and it sinks into the mud or whatever after a rain arraign, well, we become liable because it's there, not the person that put it out, it would be the city. And so if we see something like that at the bus stop, we have to go pick those chairs up and relocate them to a different area.”
Tyler Transit says the best process to donate the funds for the benches to be placed would be to go through the guidance of the city.
For Cobb, her main goal is to inspire others to take more time to care about the people in the community.
