# Philadelphia lacked bus-tracking signs. ‘Bus Stop Banksy’ stepped in.

**By:** Angie Orellana Hernandez  
**Published:** 2025-12-27T10:30:41.469Z  
**Source:** [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2025/philadelphia-street-artist-bus-signs)

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Right off a major intersection in Philadelphia’s art district, bus commuters are greeted by an aluminum sign featuring a tall bird, colorful flowers and estimated bus arrival times.

Make it Weird, an anonymous street artist in Philadelphia, unveiled their first guerrilla transit signs on Dec. 6. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

The South Philly sign was not installed by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Instead, it is one of several signs placed by local street artists who program digital screens, charge them with solar-powered batteries and carefully examine the ins and outs of sign design.

The bus-sign project is a gift to Philadelphia, Make It Weird said, and it’ll “live as long as it lives.” (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

The display shows bus routes and real-time arrivals based on SEPTA’s data feed — similar to the technology used for Google and Apple maps. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

The guerrilla transit signs are meant to make SEPTA more accessible to all, including those without a cellphone to search for arrival times, the artists said. But their other goal is to push SEPTA to move faster on the five-year, $6 million contract it signed with a California company in 2024 to install citywide digital screens.

The do-it-yourself project has received positive feedback from the community, with one local reporter dubbing the signs the work of “Bus Stop Banksy,” a moniker the artists embrace.

The sign is driven by a microcontroller called ESP32 that has WiFi and Bluetooth features. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

“We have a lot power in our day-to-day responsibilities as citizens,” said one artist, Make it Weird, who asked to go by their art pseudonym over fears of prosecution. “But it’s hard to amplify that beyond a certain point unless you get really politically involved or get a lot of attention.” Make it Weird, who uses the pronouns they and them, plans to set up 10 signs.

Make it Weird settled on an e-paper material for the displays to help limit how much power they used. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

Electrical components for the displays are enclosed in a box that protects against inclement weather. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

SEPTA Chief Innovation Officer Emily Yates told a local outlet in July 2024 that, upon the completion of a pilot program, the transit agency would install up to 700 signs across its system. Any potential progress in the year since could have been impacted by the agency’s ongoing funding crisis, said Philip Plotch, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan think tank.

Max Goldberg, a creative director unaffiliated with the street artists, reverse engineered an old sports timer in 2024 to show bus-time arrivals. He later upgraded to a display that could support scrolling letters. (Monica Mainville)

The transit agency amassed a $231 million budget shortfall this year, prompting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) to transfer $220 million in emergency funds to SEPTA in November. But the agency needs significant long-term funding from Pennsylvania’s legislature to avoid service cuts, The Washington Post previously reported.

Momentum for the funding has stalled as Republican state senators, most of whom represent rural districts, have raised questions about SEPTA’s performance.

Make it Weird and other artists who depend on SEPTA want to see the agency funded — but they also criticized it  for “dragging its heels” on rolling out the digital bus-time displays.

The second version of Goldberg’s display includes the bus route number. (Max Goldberg)

Although there were some hiccups along the way, Make it Weird said they enjoyed getting into a “flow state of problem-solving, research, trial and error.” (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

“We should not accept a budget crisis as an excuse for not treating people kindly and not taking care of people,” Make It Weird said. “We should hold our transit agency and the folks who work for it to a higher standard.”

Kelly Greene, a spokesperson for SEPTA, said the transit agency has not deployed any signs yet as internal teams work with SEPTA’s vendor to ensure cybersecurity requirements are met.

Each sign is powered by a solar panel. They are placed at intersections that have a meaningful connection to the artist who designed the cover. (Courtesy of Make it Weird)

It took a few months for Make it Weird to piece together how the signs would work. A big focus, they said, was on using equipment that did not require much power to operate. They settled on an e-paper display, similar to the material used in e-book readers, that is paired with a microcontroller, a cellular modem chip, a battery and a solar-powered circuit.

The design for the bird-themed sign in South Philadelphia was created by an artist who goes by Bird, who spoke on the condition of anonymity fearing prosecution.

In another part of Philadelphia, Max Goldberg, a creative director at CampusESP, has also designed a real-time arrival sign that he set up on a window in his home office facing a nearby bus stop. (Goldberg and the other street artists said they had no prior knowledge of each other’s projects.) Commuters have left him thank-you cards on his window, he said.

Goldberg also used an ESP32 to support his scrolling sign, which he set up in his home office overlooking a bus stop. (Max Goldberg)

Goldberg’s first version — a modified sports timer — was limited to four digits. He put it up around the holidays last year and received nice notes in his mailbox. (Max Goldberg)

Both Goldberg and the street artists hope to refine their code for fetching and displaying transit data and make it publicly available so these DIY signs can be replicated across the country. Until then, they’re just glad to help Philadelphia commuters make their buses on time.