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Proposed renaming of Dundas Street

I think this a great idea. City of Toronto now finally able to thinks outside the box thanks to Rob Ford and get its finances in order. TTC money problems will finally be solved. The city can take this idea even further and sell naming rights to all its transit routes as well. For example, YUS Line could become the Ryerson Line, 80 Queensway could become 80 Ikea, 6 Bay could become 6 Scotiabank, etc.
 
Why stop at companies, if currency is meant to simply run free...? That would be a typical liberal arteriosclerosis, no? Trying to stop the lifeblood of the world, choked on the fat of laziness!
I think religious organizations, foreign rulers, ultra-rich individuals, disease charities and organized crime should all have a crack at it. Though charities might want to adopt the face-saving measure of having a front company.
Colon Cancer station, Stormfront Station, Pentecost Station, Shariah Station, Juche Station, Hustler Station....plenty of possibilities.
 
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Renaming the station only has value to an advertiser when the old name is no longer used. That means at Dundas station all references to Dundas would need to be removed. It wasn't enough to rename SkyDome to Rogers SkyDome, it had to be Rogers Centre where a short form of Centre would be meaningless without the context of Rogers. So you won't make money with a Coca Cola Dundas Station, it needs to be Coca Cola Station and shown as Coca Cola on the route map. A name not actually mentioned when telling people where to go or meet has no value. If people continue to say "get off at Dundas" the marketing value is lost.
 
Selling naming rights can be done tastefully and in a way that is useful for people, like adding the name of a university, stadium, or a prominent private landmark. On the other hand, it can amount to unnecessary commercialization of public space. Also, it doesn't promote diversity to only have one destination acknowledged with the station name. I go to Dundas for the Eaton Centre or Dundas Square, not Ryerson. I can't believe the suggestions that corporations should be able to redesign a station as a form of enhanced marketing. The design of the stations should reflect their role as critical civic infrastructure, not to serve merely as advertising for a corporation.

Station architecture will always be the public's concern no matter the naming rights. Subways are among the greatest achievements major cities have in transportation infrastructure, so selling station naming rights has to be approached with great care as to not compromise the station as a vital public space and as a marker of urban geography. Maybe we could also name stations after important people like Montreal does, but I know that's an awkward suggestion at this point since there's no money to be made that way.
 
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Mapleson said:
I'm in the same boat and think it has to do with information overload in today's society. Adverts that inform or teach are so rare nowadays (remember the Canadian Heritage or Hinderland Canada commericals?), and we tend to turn out all the other visual spam.
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The Heritage Minutes were made by a charitable organization (Historica, now the Historica Dominion Institute) while Hinterland Who's Who was a joint Environment Canada-NFB production. In the case of the Heritage Minutes at least, they were technically on-going dramatic series that counted towards a network's Can-Con requirements (as ruled by the CTRC), hence why they were played on air.
 
EMP1729 said:
Maybe Rob Ford can champion selling naming rights for city streets, schools, libraries and other public buildings as well. Why stop there? How about the city: Visit the Coco-Cola City of Toronto. Or better yet - the "Visit New York city of Toronto!!!" Lets rename Lake Ontario to the Aquafina Lake Ontario! All our budget woes will be over!
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Hmm... I might be OK with living on McDonald's Street, Prius Drive or even SONY Terrace... but with so many streets up for grabs I'd probably end up living on Vagasil Avenue.

Seriously though, several people have suggested exclusive advertising rights which I think would be fine. There should be a long term contract that would allow them to do what they like provided they 1) maintain the station (including cleaning) and 2) return it to it's original condition if the choose not to renew.
 
If we do really sell naming rights to a station, we had better be talking some serious change. The original naming rights to BMO Field went for almost $3 million a year ... and I believe this went to closer to $5 million when it was renewed in July 2010. Some major US stadiums have gone for $20 million a year.

Presumably a station used by tens of thousands of people a day should have more value, than a stadium only used a couple of dozen times a year.

If we start renaming stations for perhaps a total of $1-million for a 5-year deal, then there's no point thinking about this. However, if a major corporation is willing to drop $250-million for a 10-year period, then it's worth thinking about.
 
nfitz said:
If we start renaming stations for perhaps a total of $1-million for a 5-year deal, then there's no point thinking about this. However, if a major corporation is willing to drop $250-million for a 10-year period, then it's worth thinking about.
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That's a nice idea, but the new advertising contract starting next year guarantees $27M per year for the whole system.
If they could get $1M per year for a busy station like Dundas that would be a big victory I think.
 
Swarley said:
If they could get $1M per year for a busy station like Dundas that would be a big victory I think.
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So, you are okay with station advertising contributing $0.002 to your fare? Oh, and $1M/year is significantly higher than what Philadelphia achieved with their sponsored station.

If this type of advertising lost one rider in ten-thousand, it would be a net revenue loss. I don't think it will but it shows how marginal the additional revenue will be.
 
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Swarley said:
If they could get $1M per year for a busy station like Dundas that would be a big victory I think.
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Good grief ... for only $1-million? That's about 20% of what BMO is paying for sports field that's only used twice a month. For a station like Dundas?

At that kind of price, would it even pay for the cost of changing all the signage throughout the system?
 
nfitz said:
Good grief ... for only $1-million? That's about 20% of what BMO is paying for sports field that's only used twice a month. For a station like Dundas?
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I assume he means $1 Million net. Dundas probably already gets $400k in advertising revenue per year, as it is one of the busiest stations and there would be some cost to redoing all of the signage if that was necessary (about $2.5Million for all maps and signs in all stations IIRC from Sheppard expansion costs + inflation).
 
The TTC has veto power on who or what organizations can advertise, right? In theory, they could turn down everyone. The TTC has mentioned they aren't interested in having a Coca-Cola station.

The more I think about it, and reading through the other posts in this thread, I think that this idea of naming rights is really a political move by the TTC. First it gets the public talking. There are a lot of people who aren't happy about this (myself included) and it could push people to lobby for better transit funding. Second, they are throwing a bone to the Rob Fords and Stephen Harpers of the country. Conservatives aren't really interested in funding transit, at least now when the TTC goes cap in hand for more money, they can say they are trying to help themselves with ad revenue.
 
rbt said:
So, you are okay with station advertising contributing $0.002 to your fare? Oh, and $1M/year is significantly higher than what Philadelphia achieved with their sponsored station.

If this type of advertising lost one rider in ten-thousand, it would be a net revenue loss. I don't think it will but it shows how marginal the additional revenue will be.
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To be fair, it's $0.05 on a full $3.00 cash fare for the minimum $27m for 12-years. Also, losing riders would be a net revenue gain, as there still is a public subsidy on their fare. It would be a gross revenue lose still though. It's still a pitance, but it does represent $24 a year off the price of a MetroPass.
 
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