Little Relief Found in Bus Shelter Fight

By JILL LEOVY TIMES STAFF WRITER

May 12, 1998 12 AM PT

A standoff at Los Angeles City Hall over the city’s bus shelter contract has stalled efforts to protect thousands of Los Angeles bus riders from the rain and blazing sun, especially those in some of the city’s poorest and most bus-dependent neighborhoods.

City officials have criticized the company that holds the contract because bus shelters are disproportionately located in busy commercial strips and wealthier sections of the city.

The reason is advertising. More affluent, busier locales--especially Santa Monica, Sunset, Ventura and Wilshire boulevards--are dotted with shelters because they are considered more likely to attract advertisers. Ads are posted on the shelters’ side walls, and provide enough revenue to pay for the shelters’ cost--and then some.

City Councilman Richard Alarcon, chairman of the council’s Transportation Committee, called it “a bad agreement from the beginning.”

He wants to rebid the contract, held by billboard giant Outdoor Systems Inc., based in Phoenix. He is also seeking a larger share of the advertising revenues for the city.

“The purpose of bus shelters is to give shelter to bus riders,” Alarcon said. “They [the contractor] have not made a good-faith effort.”

John Hall, Outdoor Systems’ director of transit, said his firm has offered to build 400 shelters right away to fill the gap--and even to renegotiate controversial elements of the contract. The company will go so far as to build smaller shelters with no ads for underserved neighborhoods with narrow sidewalks, he said.

But Hall said he has received little response from the city. “They haven’t asked us, but we are willing to sit down with them.”

Hall said one reason the dispute has reached a stalemate is that the company won’t build new shelters without some assurance it will keep the contract. Alarcon wants the company to start building shelters without any guarantee that the investment will pay off.

Also complicating matters is that city officials are aware that a host of competitors are yearning to take Outdoor Systems’ place, Hall said, adding: “We feel like a wounded gazelle with the lions circling.”

The effects of the debate are felt at such places as the Budlong Manor in Lake View Terrace, a public housing project for senior citizens, few of whom have cars.

The project is surrounded by bus stops that boast few amenities save bare concrete and a post with a sign.

Josephine Williams, a 79-year-old resident, waits there almost every other day, in every kind of weather, giving her plenty of time to ponder why there are so many shelters elsewhere.

“Oh, I’ve wondered quite some time. I think they are neglecting us,” the retired nurse’s aide said. “It isn’t too comfortable here, you know, we are elderly people. Sometimes we go to the church and sit on steps, but you might miss the bus that way.”

Narvie Johnson, manager of the housing project, said he has long worried about residents standing unprotected outdoors. “If the weather isn’t right, they could catch pneumonia or get sunstroke,” he said.

Martin Hernandez, an organizer with the Bus Riders’ Union, said the lack of bus shelters has long been an irritant to bus activists, and questioned why the contract is in private hands at all.

“It provides a good venue for advertising, but it’s not ideal for people waiting for a bus,” he said. “What would be ideal would be a bus schedule on the shelters instead--or a map. What good does it do to see this movie that’s showing when you can’t even get to the theater?”

There are 994 bus shelters in Los Angeles, a small number compared to the city’s total of 9,010 bus stops.

By a bureaucratic quirk, the shelters are overseen not by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which runs most of the buses, but by the city’s Bureau of Engineering, which manages sidewalks.

MTA Transportation Manager James Rojas called the bus shelter distribution “a terrible situation.” He said it’s been hard for advocates to get the political traction necessary for change. “Nobody really cares. It’s not a high-profile, glamorous, sexy issue,” he said.

The existing contract dates from 1987. The first holder, Shelter Media, sold out to Gannett a few years later. Then Outdoor Systems stepped in, but the city has yet to formalize the arrangement.

One reason, said Hall, is that shelter advertising is not as lucrative as people think: The contract changed hands in part because it wasn’t profitable. It is now, but by a narrow margin, he said.

The uneven distribution of shelters dates back to the early days of the industry--predating Outdoor Systems’ involvement, Hall said.

When bus shelters first popped up in the ‘80s, the advertising world was dubious, and the most desirable firms turned up their noses.

Today, companies from toothpaste makers to clothing designers snap up the advertising space. Shelters earn points for being highly visible, said Hall, and are less likely to stir complaints about visual blight than billboards.

But when they were being built, both the contractor and the city were so concerned about making the program work that little thought was given to distribution.

The contractor “for economic reasons wanted them in certain areas,” said Robert LaFrance, senior city civil engineer, “and the city wanted to get this going.”

Hall, who also worked for Gannett, now says this was a mistake, even from the advertisers’ point of view. They now seek to blanket regions with as many venues as possible, rather than concentrating them in select areas, he said.

Under the contract, the company builds the shelters, and sells advertising space by the month at a cost of between $600 and $1,000 per shelter wall.

The city gets an automatic 13% share of net advertising revenues from bus shelters, an amount that has totaled about $1 million per year recently, LaFrance said.

Alarcon has asked city engineers to examine Outdoor Systems’ performance to determine if the city has legal grounds to break the contract.

The Transportation Committee next meets to discuss the bus shelter contract at 2 p.m. Thursday, Room 314, City Hall, 200 N. Main St.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Bus Shelters

Number of bus shelters by City Council district:

District 1: 49

District 2: 61

District 3: 67

District 4: 107

District 5: 119

District 6: 69

District 7: 34