C'mon! If all we were talking about was JUST BUS STOP ADVERTISING then fine. Do it in a nice way.... but then we have companies that see this as an opportunity to push. Pretty soon it's everywhere.... I'm not making this up. It HAS happened before in other cities. Take LA for example. Letting Bus shelter advertising into their signage regulations opened them up to all kinds or really offensive stuff that they really can't stop now. It's like a pandoras box and it starts here and now. . And then, who's to say what kind of advertising it is... and isn't offensive.. Opens up the whole 1st amendment issue. Trust me we are better of without it.
The transit system isn't better off being subpar. Seriously, Jax is not on an island. There's nothing we're facing that some other city out there hasn't faced and either succeeded or failed out there. There should be plenty of examples to learn from out there and come up with a viable compromise and solution that does not open up a "pandora's box", not only for bus shelters, but wayfaring and directional signage as well.
The bus advertisement is a whole separate issue. For some strange reason it's not withing the jurisdiction of the cities signage regs... something about its moving... I dunno
Listen, we can agree that we need better bus stops... but there are other... smarter.... ways of accomplishing it before you just sell out and start down a road that ends up with a city without a sign reg...
I don't think anyone mentioned that we should take the proposal JTA had on the table hook, line and sinker. The whole theme of this article has been about finding a way to search for a viable public/private solution even if the solution ends up including some form of advertising on the end product.
Start a "adopt a shelter" program or... something like that... lets get creative...
Honestly, I thought you guys would really be on board with this...
I can't speak for others but I lay somewhere in the middle of the two arguments out there. JTA's is one extreme, while the other side is the other extreme. The answer that works best for the community probably lies somewhere in the middle, but both sides have to be willing to give a little.
As for "adopting a shelter", that's a noble concept. How many transit agencies have been success with this option on a large scale level? If there's a good example of it out there, then by all means, lets explore. Nevertheless, its one thing to come up with a creative solution, but its another to spend years trying to find a way to recreate the wheel, when there may be successful methods (that don't open pandora's boxes) already out there.
