Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 ::: "Street Furniture"

Astral Media has rejected the offer to provide a city-wide bike sharing system that would allow for more advertising on the City road allowance. We covered the issue back in December.

Astral Media’s street furniture contract with the City of Toronto, for which it vastly overbid, has turned into an unmitigated financial disaster for the company; with Astral currently experiencing a 35% vacancy rate on its transit shelter advertising (TSA) product, it was in no mood to put more capital into Toronto street furniture.

As a result, and because Astral’s contract with the City grants it a near-monopoly (actually a right of first refusal) on advertising on the road allowance, the City has issued this Request for Expressions of Interest for an advertising-free bike sharing network (although the bikes themselves may contain logos).

All said, we are quite pleased at this development.