Advertising at Bus Shelters: One Person’s Blight Is Another’s Cover

JoAnn Burrows, assistant manager of the Lake Forest Community Assn., saw it as a simple issue. Bus shelters with advertising are “a blight on our community,” she said at a recent hearing.

But Orange County Planning Commissioner C. Douglas Leavenworth viewed it far differently. Allowing ads is “the practical American way” to provide benches and shelters for bus riders at no cost to the government.

The thorny issue of advertising on bus benches and shelters returns to the Planning Commission on Tuesday for decisions on a package of recommendations to be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors.

A growing number of complaints about the ads, which some view as eyesores, prompted the supervisors to ask for a study last year. Now, new regulations have been developed by the county Environmental Management Agency, but they are being attacked from both sides.

“The community is saying the proposed regulations are too liberal, and the bus bench industry is saying they’re too restrictive,” said Frank McGill, a senior EMA planner.

Fees on Shelters

The benches and shelters on which the ads appear are installed at private expense, and the county exacts a fee of $70 a year for each shelter and another $50 if there are ads on the shelter.

However, testimony at Planning Commission hearings Jan. 20 and Feb. 10 showed that, for at least the last four years, there have been instances in which the county allowed installation of bus shelters with ads even in communities where zoning regulations barred them.

EMA staff members now have recommended that the Planning Commission approve and send to the Board of Supervisors new rules that would allow officials to prohibit future shelters and benches with ads in communities where they are barred by zoning. But the new rules would allow existing benches and shelters to stay, even if they violate those zoning regulations, for at least two years--provided that bus routes don’t change.

30 Riders a Day

In communities allowing but regulating the “furniture,” shelters could be installed only at stops with at least 30 riders a day and with minimum spacing between shelters, under the proposed rules.

At the recent Planning Commission hearings, some residents of unincorporated areas complained that the shelters are constructed not for the convenience of riders but only as vehicles for advertising, and that they are erected in areas where they are totally unneeded.

In fact, the shelter opponents say, from an advertising standpoint, the fewer the riders, the better. Someone seated on a bench or standing in a shelter could block the ad message. Empty shelters provide clear views of ads.

But VerLyn Jensen, an attorney representing Irvine-based Bustop Shelters of California, said the shelters are not “bootleg billboards,” designed to flaunt ads even in areas where there are no riders, but are put up to protect riders from the elements.

Enhance Ridership

And Steve Bjornson, a supervisor with the Orange County Transit District, said that benches and shelters “enhance our ridership” and improve service. “I’m pro-furniture,” Bjornson said.

Complaints about the benches and especially the shelters, which are lighted at night, have come from various areas of the county, officials said, but much of the criticism has zeroed in on Lake Forest Drive and El Toro Road. Some residents have complained about ads for cigarettes and R-rated movies, but the county’s lawyers say they cannot censor the ads.

The Environmental Management Agency said nearly half of the cities in the county allow ads on shelters and benches, five allow ads on one or the other, and eight bar ads altogether.

In unincorporated areas of the county, which come under the control of the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, 297 of the 714 bus stops have ads on benches, shelters or both.

The greatest potential for conflict arises in the six communities in unincorporated areas of the county that specifically bar ads on bus benches within their borders: Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Bear Brand, Laguna Laurel and South Laguna.

But Leavenworth said that as long as those planned communities have public streets and public transportation, he and his fellow commissioners should not restrict the ads.

“It’s the practical American way to get this furniture out there for the transit district, the bus riders,” Leavenworth said.