Revised Contract Would Add Needed Bus Shelters

A Los Angeles City Council panel on Monday endorsed an amended contract with the company that operates city bus shelters. If approved by the full council, the new contract will pump revenue into city coffers and add hundreds of new shelters to the city’s overburdened transportation system.

“The contract we approved today takes a common-sense approach to a tough issue that we’ve been dealing with for years,” said West Valley Councilwoman Laura Chick, a member of the Public Works Committee. “We’ll be getting much more bang for the buck.”

The contract with Phoenix-based billboard conglomerate Outdoor Systems Inc. would be amended to include terms Chick called “highly favorable” to the city.

Outdoor Systems would add 400 bus shelters throughout the city over the next four years.

The company would work in tandem with the city to design the new shelters. Outdoor Systems would pay for the shelters as well as for improved lighting and increased weekly maintenance checks. It would also provide reduced advertising rates to some nonprofit organizations.

Under the new contract, the city’s share of gross annual advertising revenue would increase from 13% to 20%.

“It’s a win-win situation benefiting the citizens of the city and our company,” said Doreen Roberts, director of community develop at Outdoor Systems.

The city’s agreement with Outdoor Systems has been the subject of consternation at City Hall since acquiring the bus shelter rights from Gannett in 1996.

Last year, former City Councilman Richard Alarcon, then head of the council’s Transportation Committee, was looking for ways to cancel the contract and seek new bids.

Alarcon complained that bus shelters were heavily concentrated in high-income areas that generate large amounts of advertising revenue, even though bus ridership was higher in low-income neighborhoods.

Some council members also felt that the city wasn’t getting enough in advertising revenue. The city’s 13% take, which amounted to about $1 million annually, was slightly lower than what many other area cities were earning.

The new contract would also increase the number of shelters in low-income areas by considering ridership volume when determining their locations.

The new contract would bring the total number of bus shelters in the city to about 1,400. There are 9,000 bus stops in Los Angeles.

The council is expected to take up the issue next week.