Council Panel Endorses Contract on Bus Shelters

A Los Angeles City Council panel on Monday endorsed an amended contract with the company that builds and maintains 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 Councilwoman Laura Chick, a member of the Public Works Committee. “We’ll be getting much more bang for the buck.”

Under the contract with Phoenix-based billboard conglomerate Outdoor Systems Inc., 400 new bus shelters will be added throughout the city over the next four years. That will bring the total number of bus shelters in the city to about 1,400. There are 9,000 bus stops in Los Angeles.

The company would work in tandem with the city to design the new shelters. Outdoor Systems would pay for the new 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%.

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.

Besides increasing the city’s share of advertising revenue, the new contract would also bolster the number of shelters in low-income areas by considering ridership volume when determining locations.

The bus shelter issue is expected to be taken up next week by the council.