Shelter image Michal Zacharzewski

 

Off-site advertising bans make ad-sponsored shelters tricky.  Why the California 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals might be the new BFF of JTA. 

The video is excellent.  Mike Miller, Jacksonville Transit Authority Director of External Affairs, has been showing it to citizen groups, neighborhood associations, civic organizations, elected officials and others.  “Many, of course, were not transit users,” he says of his audience, “but many were more receptive after seeing what it was like for passengers waiting in the rain and sun,” without shelter.  JTA adds about 20 shelters a year to a stock that is currently up to about 400.  That’s 400 shelters in a system with 6,600 stops, right at 6%.  With the help of an advertising contract that could go up to 80 per year.

The JTA bus stop design guidelines have very specific requirements for shelters in the historic districts of Avondale, San Marco, and Springfield, mission-style, site-built structures that have the name of the neighborhood on them, not unlike a train station.  These historic areas are off-limits to shelter advertising, but the rest of the city is fare game.  And “city” here has a special connotation because it is almost exactly the same size as Duval County as a result of consolidation in 1968.  Since nearly everyone living in the county also lives in the city limits, Jacksonville is the most populous city in Florida.  In terms of land area, it is the largest city in the United States, a sprawling mess in a very hot, humid, rainy, climate that badly needs those shelters.

Anyone who has driven on a Vermont interstate can attest to the glory that is a billboard-free environment; they are banned in Vermont and three other states: Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii.  That those states are known for their scenic beauty reflects the desire of many people and municipalities to get control over what is known as off-site advertising, or ads located on property not owned by the advertiser.  Basically, it means billboards.

Advertising bans have grown in popularity as a way to remove visual blight. The Jacksonville city council acted in 1987 to limit the number of billboards in the city and later the same year the voters passed an amendment to the city charter banning new construction of the signs while mandating the incremental removal of existing signs.  El Paso, Jersey City, and Dallas have similar bans.  Houston, Texas, has a law starting this year banning inflatable gorillas and other balloons on rooftops as advertisements.

In a somewhat contradictory move, a few cities that have off-site advertising bans have amended those statutes to allow advertising on transit shelters.  JTA bills an advertising contract as a way to increase the number of shelters for passengers.  Really, that only tells part of the story: shelters are a capital expense that can be raised from state and federal governments or, for example, from new development.  Building is easy; maintaining is difficult and JTA’s maintenance costs are $800 per shelter annually, or $320,000 out of the operations budget, a harder pot of money to fill.  The way these ad contracts are usually structured, the responsibility for building and maintaining the shelters falls to the ad company and that is very attractive to a transit agency.

There is opposition to the plan based on law and aesthetics.  The legal concern is that allowing this one exception will open the advertising ban to other challenges from ad companies.  Attorney William Brinton is particularly concerned with this.  He has been working for 20 years to put limits on outdoor advertising in Jacksonville and naturally he does not want a setback.  But Jacksonville recently got a little help on this point from the left coast.

In 2001 the City of Los Angeles entered into a contract with CBS to place bus shelters in the public right-of-way in exchange for exclusive advertising rights on those shelters.  Five months later that same city government, seemingly contradicting itself, enacted a sign ordinance generally banning off-site advertising.  The reason for the ban was traffic safety and aesthetics, but at the same time the ban excluded transit shelters.

An outdoor sign company, Metro Lights LLC, sued on First Amendment grounds and the district court agreed that “[t]he City cannot, on the one hand, preclude Plaintiff from displaying messages on its off-site signs as a supposed legitimate exercise of its police powers while, on the other hand, authorizing its Street Furniture contractor to erect off-site signs in or near the public rights of way throughout the City.”

But on appeal the 9th District court reversed the lower court’s opinion.  The court deemed limiting the rights of commercial free speech acceptable as long as the city could show “with plausibility sufficient to merit the deference of Metromedia that the Sign Ordinance, even coupled with the [agreement], advances the City’s interests and is narrowly tailored.”  That was in June, 2009.

In an urban environment shelter ads blend in as seen here with this clear bus shelter. A man enjoys a seat and a cofee, neither at taxpayer expense. Photo Matthew Maaskant.

As for aesthetics, a bus shelter advertisement is a very different animal from a billboard or giant gorilla, what is known as an “attention-getting device.”  In a dense urban environment shelter advertising shares space with street signs, garbage cans, display windows, and lots of people and cars, no more obtrusive or attention-getting than a window dressing of mannequins in bikinis.  In the suburban setting shelter ads are likely to be in front of a strip mall or big box retailer whose own contributions to aesthetics could charitably be described as modest. 

The main contrast between shelter ads and billboards, of course, is that a shelter advertisement comes attached to a shelter, giving this form of advertising a public purpose.  Advertising provides free broadcast television, free radio, and free Trip Planner Magazines in exchange for the public’s eyes and ears.  But outdoor advertising is largely a one-way street: the public gets big, ugly signs, the advertising companies get paid.  Shelter ads are a corrective.  Mike Miller says, “Every cent that goes to building or maintaining shelters comes from the public, from taxes.  Even capital money that comes from FTA could be applied to buses instead of shelters, so if we can have private firms take on the taxpayer costs in return for a small ad on a shelter, that is small price to pay.”

George Jupp, chief operating officer of Streetscape Media Inc., a company that provides shelters with advertising, agrees. “In a time where funding is in such short supply it surprises me that the opinions of a few continue to prevent a good thing for the people.  Right now, Jacksonville has a chance to provide additional amenities by using bus shelter advertising, saving tax dollars for other projects. In addition revenue sharing programs will provide additional funds to buy new, greener buses and even more amenities. It is a winner for the city.”

Miller had a convincing argument that he took on the road.  Transit users “showed up at the meetings and had a big impact on the 11 members of the council” that voted for the advertising contract.  There are 19 council members.  Two were absent and six were opposed.  Councilman Warren Jones was the original sponsor of the amendment.  He voted yes as did 10 other members who also happened to be co-sponsors.  That’s how much they wanted the shelter deal.  “Make sure,” recommends Miller, “existing riders know of the issue.  They have the most to gain and are most likely to get involved.  Put car cards up letting passengers know the issue is on the table.”

For transit users and parts of the public, shelter advertising seems like a fare trade, even a really good deal (the Florida Times Union newspaper editorial board has published several pieces in support of the deal).  For others, providing shelters is part of the transit agency’s mission and should not be put off on the private market in order to put more ads in the public domain.  With elected officials on their side, JTA feels they are on safe ground and are moving forward with the RFP as early as February 2010.  Their passengers may not have that much longer to wait.