Posted on: Friday, April 30, 2004

New bus ads take back seat to usage

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

The City Council's Transportation Committee yesterday deferred action on a bill that could allow advertising on the outside of city buses to promote ridership pending completion of a new city marketing plan to increase bus usage.

City transportation director Cheryl Soon testified against Bill 22 and said a consultant has started looking into a marketing campaign and conducting focus groups to explore issues concerning bus riders. That plan will not be completed for some time, she said.

The campaign would likely include new ads inside the buses themselves and new television commercials to bring the number of bus riders back up to pre-strike levels, according to Soon.

Bus drivers and other workers struck O'ahu Transit Services, which operates the city bus service, on Aug. 26 and stayed off the job for nearly a month. During that time, the City Council approved fare increases for nearly every category of rider from daily and monthly pass holders, to youths and senior citizens.

Soon told the committee that despite the strike and fare increase the average passenger level is down less than 10 percent a day from pre-strike figures. Ridership dropped 22 percent right after the strike.

Soon also said the ads could be seen as violating the state's billboard law, which restricts some advertising.

Soon said even with fewer riders, bus revenues are up 4.4 percent following the strike thanks to the fare increase.

The bill was introduced by Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz on behalf of the city's Transportation Commission, which advises the city on transportation issues.

Commission member Brian Uy was the only person to testify in support of the measure. He said the commission would simply like the issue of ads outside buses to raise money looked into.

"In that sense we are in support," Uy said. "We would like to make it clear that the commission is not in support of general advertising. "

Uy told the committee the commission would submit a report on the issue.

Dela Cruz said the bill would not allow any type of advertising, but would allow ads that promote riding the bus.

Mary Steiner, chief executive officer for the Outdoor Circle, said any ads on the outside of buses are inappropriate and the City Council already killed a similar bill last year.

"It wasn't very long ago we killed Bill 50 and the public was very much opposed to the advertising on the side of buses," Steiner said. "This bill seems to do the same thing, only now we are going to promote bus ridership on the outside of buses so we can have Phillip Morris saying 'Ride the bus and smoke Marlboro.' ... I understand that is not the intent of the bill, but the way the bill is written that certainly is not precluded."