MTA Continues With Its Ambitious Advertising Plan
Over the last few months, I have covered the MTA’s ambitious advertising plan to turn its bus & subway real estate into a major revenue source. The plan had been kicked into high gear at the beginning of this month when they unveiled the first fully wrapped shuttle train. One of the major ideas that been discussed throughout was the idea of having ads displayed on tunnel walls as trains went by. They would display like a storybook going from frame to frame. Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times looks more into this specific plan in a report she filed a couple of days ago:
The New York City transit system is adding a new site for advertisements: the interior of subway tunnels.
Starting next spring with the 42nd Street-Times Square shuttle, passengers will see advertising outside the windows as the train travels between stations. The messages will look rather like jumpy 15-second TV ads.
The tunnel advertising is part of an ambitious Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan to convert much of its real estate into advertising space. In addition to the tunnel ads, it will sell space on turnstiles, digital screens inside stations, projections against subway station walls, and panels on the outside of subway cars.
And the authority wants revenue to help it cover its projected $900 million budget shortfall next year.
“In light of the fiscal difficulties that the M.T.A.’s facing, we have set out to basically look under every rock for ways that we can cut costs and raise revenue,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the authority.
Click here for the complete report.
As I’ve said in the past, while it is not exciting me to see the subway potentially filled with even more ads, I can live with it. The MTA needs any solid & dependable source of income it can get & if that means a bump up in advertisements, so be it. My personal preference is nowhere near as important as the agency getting the money it needs to help upkeep & grow our transit infrastructure.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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