The agreement with Pattison Outdoor Advertising could bring over $100K annually to the district, staff say
District of North Vancouver transit users could soon see digital ads at bus stops.
District council gave staff the thumbs up to enter negotiations with Pattison Outdoor Advertising to display digital ads at seven bus stops with shelters.
The district could receive 25 per cent of the net revenues for each shelter. Pattison estimated in the future, that could be approximately $95,000 to $142,000 annually for all seven bus stops.
Five of the proposed locations are at existing bus stops, going westbound Mt Seymour Parkway at Seymour Blvd, east and westtbound Marine Drive at Capilano Road, and both east and westbound Dollarton Highway at Amherst Ave. Two new shelters are suggested for eastbound Mt Seymour Parkway at Seymour Boulevard and southbound Mountain Highway at Lynn Valley Road.
These locations were seen as high traffic areas, a district staff report notes, and will need final approval by Pattison to move along construction.
Each digital ad display at the bus shelters would go through eight ads on a 64-second loop, displaying for eight seconds. Pattison is offering one ad space at each shelter for the district to use at no cost to share municipal and community messages.
The digital screens can also be used for emergency alerts when needed, as Pattison’s Network Operations Centre coordinates with the RCMP and province.
Since 2017, Pattison has been switching ads from static paper to digital at various transit shelters across the Lower Mainland, including West Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver.
In 2015, the district signed an agreement with Pattison to install, operate and maintain bus shelters that contain ads within the municipality. With that agreement, Pattison will continue to cover construction, operation and maintenance costs for bus shelters that have digital ads.
Other locations could be added in the future, needing the final OK from both the district and Pattison Advertising Group.
Council passed the motion at the last council meeting before the summer break on July 20, with Coun. Jordan Back recusing himself over a conflict of interest as he works for Pattison Outdoor Advertising.
Mayor Mike Little said he supports the digital ads, but worries the eight-second digital ad timeframe poses a distraction to drivers and could annoy nearby neighbours.
He suggested increasing the ad rotation to a minute.
“So that it’s not constantly flipping. You have a neighbour that lives across the street and it’s ‘Now blue, now it’s all green, now it’s all white’ every eight seconds, that seems arduous for a neighbour to endure,” Little said.
Staff said Pattison would prefer not to increase the time as the eight seconds follows every other shelter they operate at across Canada and it would significantly reduce ad opportunities with the district if they were different.
Couns. Lisa Muri and Herman Mah echoed support in bringing new bus shelters to the municipality.
“With advertising agencies providing the shelter in return for us providing real estate for their signs, we get something needed in the community and … the costs are covered by someone else,” Mah said. “So that’s a great option.”
If the district and the ad firm can negotiate an agreement, the digital ads are set to be installed later this year or early 2027.
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.