It’s a rainy Saturday, and Mark Samaan is holed up in a basement workshop in Clifton, surrounded by piles of wood.

The 24-year-old spends the afternoon building benches. Measure. Cut. Drill. Measure. Cut. Drill.

Eventually, these benches will end up at bus stops around the city. But here’s the thing: Samaan does not work for Cincinnati Metro, and the bus system neither hired him to build benches nor asked him to do so.

This is not his job. But Samaan is a bus rider. And he got tired of waiting at stops with no place to sit.

“A well-planned city has benches in places where you know people are going to be waiting,” said Samaan, who works as an associated planner for Hamilton County. “To me, it’s like basic infrastructure, like having a sidewalk or having a crosswalk or paving potholes.”

Cincinnati has a problem. The bus system is struggling, and it seems to be getting worse. There are fewer and fewer riders, which means less and less money. Less money leads to worse service, which leads to fewer riders, which leads to – well, you get it.

In July, there was a heated debate over whether the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, the agency that runs Cincinnati Metro, should ask voters for a levy this fall. SORTA ultimately balked, pushing the decision back until at least May 2019. But some, like Samaan, are no longer willing to wait.

He and the Better Bus Coalition, which is in the midst of getting federal approval for its nonprofit status, have placed 14 benches at bus stops so far. Another six are finished, save for a final coat of paint. And there are plans to build another 30, which Samaan hopes to have in place by December.

“This is what happens when the city doesn’t respond to needs,” he said. “Eventually, someone that doesn’t care about getting in trouble will do it.”

A look at other volunteer efforts surrounding the local bus system:

Start your own shuttle

On weekday mornings, shuttle vans take workers from Lower Price Hill to several job sites throughout the region. It’s a collaboration between Beacon of Hope, Nehemiah Manufacturing and Cincinnati Works, a nonprofit aimed at helping job seekers find work and employers find employees.

“It’s kind of a test,” said David Herche, Cincinnati Works chairman. “Metro does a great job, but it doesn’t have enough, and it doesn’t go at appropriate times for those who need to be at work at 7:30 in the morning.”

Herche is also executive chairman of West Chester Protective Gear in Sharonville. Most of his employees drive, he said, but for those who rely on public transportation, there just aren’t any good options with Metro. The Route 67 Sharonville Job Connection makes just one trip from Downtown each weekday, leaving Government Square at 6 a.m.

“It’s just an impossible task if you live a bit of distance from Downtown Cincinnati to get to work on a Metro bus,” Herche said. “We said, ‘Let’s just try it.’ Transportation doesn’t necessarily have to be on big buses.”

Clean up your local bus stop

On Sunday mornings, there’s often a small group of volunteers picking up trash at bus stops around the city. It’s the Better Bus Coalition plus whoever else wants to join in, said Cam Hardy, the coalition’s president.

Metro pays Downtown Cincinnati Inc. a little more than $12,000 a month to clean stops at Government Square and around Downtown’s Central Business District. But that only covers approximately 39 of Metro’s 4,000-plus stops in Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties.

For the rest, it's up to Metro and whatever business or municipality owns the land on which the stop is located. It gets even more complicated because Metro doesn't actually own any bus benches outside Government Square. Those that happen to be at other stops were placed there by other groups.

Regardless who is responsible, Hardy said, the stops are frequently a mess, with overflowing trash cans, cigarette butts, weeds and benches that are either deteriorating or nonexistent. People already have a negative perception of bus riders, Hardy said. It’s tough to shake that image if bus stops are filthy.

“I have a real day job,” he said, adding that he feels empowered when he takes steps to improve the bus system but also annoyed that such tasks are falling to riders.

“I care about this a lot, and I’m going to keep doing it. If we sit around just waiting for government or the SORTA board to do these things, we’re going to be waiting forever.”

Sign a petition

On Election Day, volunteers from the Better Bus Coalition will be at polling locations throughout the city. The SORTA board has said it will go for a levy in 2019, but Hardy doesn’t believe it. So, he plans to circumvent the board altogether, to gather enough signatures himself to put a 0.2 percent citywide earnings tax on the ballot in May.

A countywide sales-tax measure would be best, Hardy said, but individual citizens don't have the authority to put one on the ballot. So, if elected leaders won’t give voters a chance, he said, a citizen-led, city-only measure is the next best option.

“They continue to push this off year after year after year,” he said. “We’re going to give the citizens an opportunity to vote on something.”

Now, back to the benches. Each costs the Better Bus Coalition about $45. They buy the wood in bulk and got a deal on the paint. The labor is all donated.

The first went to Walnut Hills, at the Gilbert Avenue stop for routes 1, 4 and 11. One hundred fifty people a day use that stop, Samaan said, and there was no bench. Nothing but an overflowing trash can.

After the first few were installed and word started spreading on social media, people started donating money to sponsor more, Samaan said.

Hardy thinks city and county officials are intentionally neglecting the bus system, letting it languish into disrepair. It’s about race and class, he said. Seventy-one percent of bus riders are non-white, according to the most recent survey, and 62 percent are low-income, meaning they have an annual household income of $25,000 or less.

“It’s lower-class citizens. They can wait,” Hardy said. “That’s what we’ve been told for years: Shut up and wait.”

Samaan thinks it’s more an “unintentional disrespect.” The system isn’t getting what it needs, he said, but he doesn’t think officials are actively trying to hurt bus riders. “I just think they haven’t been forced to think about it until now.”

A bench is a small thing. It’s easy to take for granted until you’re the one standing at a stop with no place to rest. But this is about more than just giving people a place to sit or cleaning up some litter, Samaan said. It's about showing that bus riders are important and that their safety and comfort matter.

“It’s an improvement people can see,” he said. “It gives people the feeling that something is changing, something is happening."

Getting there: Fixing Greater Cincinnati’s public transportation

Getting around Greater Cincinnati without a car can be tough. What can we all do to make sure the area has a world-class public transportation system that helps the economy, workers, businesses and families?

This year, The Enquirer – and you, if you so choose – will be working on that.

We’ll examine how we got here, what the problems are and, most importantly, what we need to do. Let’s go.

Questions? Suggestions? Email Carl Weiser at cweiser@enquirer.com

About the series:

Spring: How we got here. A look back at Cincinnati's troubled transit history.

Summer: Where we are now. What are the shortcomings of Greater Cincinnati's transit system? Why does it matter?

Today: What can we do? What are solutions other cities have tried? What could we try here?

Coming this winter: Let's think big: What kind of transportation system do we want in 10, 20 – even 50 years?

Help us fix this problem

Have ideas? Want to join with other people who want to create a better public transportation system? Join The Enquirer's new 'Getting There' Facebook Group.