Would you rather board the SkyTrain at Granville Station or TD Bank Station? Metro Vancouver mayors are mulling the possibility of selling naming rights at SkyTrain stops to help fund future transportation projects.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says naming revenue could help play for the much-anticipated but chronically underfunded $1.4-billion Evergreen Line, and criteria could be set out to keep the names “thoughtful and tasteful.”
“For instance, you look at Stadium Station. The natural fit would be ‘Rogers Stadium Station,’ so something as simple as that,”
“I’m sure there are people who aren’t going to like this,” Watts said, “but they also don’t want to pay higher taxes.”
There’s no telling how much or how little companies would bid for a similar deal in Metro Vancouver, however. Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of anti-consumerism magazine Adbusters, fears the psychological effects of letting companies put their stamp on transit stops.
“You’d get corporate names thrown at you every time you pass a station, every few minutes,” Lasn said.
“My feeling is that our children, and we ourselves shouldn’t be reminded of mega-corporations every time we hop on a train… I hope there’s a lot of public outcry about this.”
An estimated one-million people are expected to move into the region over the next 20 years, Watts said, which could result in smog and frequent gridlocked traffic if public transportation isn’t improved.
“We either become like Los Angeles or we start planning today for the future,” she said.
Metro Vancouver mayors will discuss transit station naming rights and other transportation issues at a meeting on July 29.
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