 |
Who's
enforcing the conditions of |
| Viacom
Outdoor seems to be breaking the rules of their contract with the
city for providing transit shelters. We don't know what's worse; an
outdoor ad company treating our streets like their playground, or
city staff turning a blind eye. We call on City Councillors to raise our concerns at Community Council, Planning & Transportation Committee and City Council. In the meantime, the shelter ads for Listerine, iPod and Herbal Essence should all be removed immediately for safety reasons and contract violations. |
Case #1 - iPod ads on Streetcar Shelters
| The Viacom contract clearly states that "public safety including visibility of vehicular and pedestrian traffic and signage must be maintained with respect to any advertising enhancement shelter locations." That means no ads in the middle of the road. After receiving complaints of the mega-sized iPod ads on Spadina, College & Queen, Olivia Chow's office asked city staff to remove the iPod signs. Staff have refused to act, on the grounds that the signs are legal and safe. |
| "I
have visited these ads and they are translucent. They do not pose
a safety concern or vision hazard for vehicular or pedestrian traffic."
- City of Toronto staff member with Transportation Services. |
 |
The ads completely block pedestrian sightlines at most angles. The black silhouettes are 100% opaque at all angles. Secondly, how does a staff member translate "visibility must be maintained" into "translucent"? Translucent means that some light gets through, but that you can't actually see what's behind. Thank goodness Toronto staff don't design windshields. What's worse
is that there shouldn't really be ads on the glass shelters at all!
The Viacom contract states that ads should only go on the illuminated
sections of bus shelters, not on glass panels. Unfortunately, there
is a loophole called "enhanced advertisements"
that allows Viacom and city staff to agree on ads that are any size,
on any surface, without consulting the local councillor or Community
Council! |
Case #2 - Street names on shelters
| Toronto's transit shelters used to have street names on them. In the September 2000 contract, Viacom agreed to put street names on all their new shelters. |
| Contract: "Each shelter shall be equipped with two signs giving the stop name in letters no less than 80 mm high, affixed to each of the front and near side of the roof of the shelter" |  |
| Five years later, there are no names. Instead, each shelter has a sign that says "Viacom". In the spring of 2005 City staff told the Toronto Star that "They would start putting up the names in mid July and be finished by mid September." Mid September has passed and we haven't seen a single name. |
| Ironically,
when "Listerine" asked Viacom to write the words "THINK
ORANGE" on a bus shelter window, they figured out pretty quick
how to do it. (See next item) Click here for more about the shelter names. |
 |
Case #3 - Listerine shelters
| During the summer, a few Viacom shelters suddenly sprouted nine foot tall 3D bottles of Listerine attached to the outside of the shelter. This is a so-called "enhanced advertisement" that was approved by staff. The
Viacom contract says "generally, advertising enhancements
should not be external to the shelter." Clearly someone
thought that we shouldn't have ads sticking out of our shelter.
But the word "generally" was added, creating a loophole
which both Viacom and staff have happily jumped through. However, there are other sections of the contract which would imply "No nine foot bottles allowed": |
 |
Section
1. Definitions Schedule
"A" Technical Specifications |
| In fact, the contract does not even explore the possibility of three dimensional advertising at all. The idea was proposed by Viacom and approved by staff, ignoring the intent of the restrictions described in the contract. |
Here's the best part: Viacom was allowed to wrap the entire shelter in translucent orange. Now, if you're sitting in the shelter waiting for the bus, you can hardly see a thing. It's as if city staff forgot that bus shelters are there as a service to transit riders.
|
 |
Case #4 - Herbal Essence ads
| City staff allowed Viacom to put ads on three walls of these shelters. Again, blocking sightlines and completely ignoring the intent of the contract's specifications. Staff claim this is an "enhanced advertisement." It's not. It's three walls of ads on a shelter that was designed for one. Schedule
"A" Technical Specifications: |
 |
 |
 |
| If you're sitting down waiting for the bus... |
...this is your view. How useful. |
Case #5 - Free ads for the City
The contract states that Viacom "shall, at all times, provide (6%) of the total number of Advertising Faces free of charge to the City for the display of public service promotional material." Whoever wrote the contract knew that Viacom could easily place the 6% in low-traffic areas of the City so the following clause was added: "Free advertising space made available to the City under this section shall be distributed on a City-wide evenly spaced geographic basis..." We
did an audit of some downtown areas to see if we were getting our
6%. First we counted all the advertising faces on Viacom shelters
on Queen Street from Yonge to Bathurst. We found 27 ads, but none
for the City. Then we tried Dundas. 26 ads, none
for the City. We kept going until we had counted every Viacom shelter
ad from Yonge to Bathurst, and Queen all the way up to Bloor. We
found a total of 182 advertising faces, which should include 11
ads for the City, but there were only 4. Only one was at a major
intersection (Spadina & Harbord). The others were at low-traffic
bus stops like the ad at the corner of Bay & Albert which will
only be seen by City Councillors on their way to the Eaton Centre
Food Court. Note: For this audit we counted every 'ad surface' on the shelters. For example, if Viacom placed ads on all three glass walls of a shelter (which they really shouldn't be doing) we counted that as three ads. Likewise if four iPod ads appeared across a streetcar shelter we counted each "sheet" as a separate 'advertising surface' as defined by the contract. |
Case #6 - Shelter lighting
How many Viacom workers does it take to change a light bulb? According to the contract, Viacom "shall ensure that all New Shelters without Caissons are equipped with roof lighting". We checked out some of these shelters and found that while they are all equipped with lights, most of the one's we found weren't working. Interestingly, Viacom seems to be very quick to change the bulbs on their ads, but not the lights for transit riders. |
| We call on City Councillors to raise our concerns at Community Council, Planning & Transportation Committee and City Council. In the meantime, the shelter ads for Listerine, iPod and Herbal Essence should all be removed immediately for safety reasons and contract violations. |
| Like what we're doing? Click here for our monthly newsletter. Click here to get involved. Click here to make a small donation. Click here for our homepage |
