October 19th, 2007
This traffic signal is brought to you by …
By Dylan Reid // 3 Comments
It's a disconcerting experience to find that an April Fool's joke in fact has an element of reality to it.
This spring, I posted a funny April Fool by Martin Koob of BikeToronto, which purported to announce that the city would sell advertising space in its pedestrian signals.
But a post on Torontoist today points out that, in fact, some pedestrian signals have indeed been sponsored by corporations. Over recent years, some companies have given money to the city to install Audible Pedestrian Signals (which assist the visually impaired) at certain intersections, a donation that is thanked by a plaque beside the signal. The city only puts up about 20 of these signals a year with its own money, so these donations are providing signals where they might not otherwise have been installed for quite some time (in some cases, for example, near the company's buildings).
I'm not sure what to think of it. On the one hand, I agree with the principle expressed by the author, Val Dodge, that
If corporations are willing to spend money to "contribute to civic improvement," why not just raise that money through taxation? It would give the city the freedom to decide exactly which parts of the civic realm require improvement, rather than relying on private donors to make those choices.
He notes that the city might, instead, use the additional money to accelerate automated stop announcements on the TTC, which might benefit more people (or, I would add, they could accelerate the APS program but at more heavily-used intersections).
(Note that if you are going to comment on this, you should read his whole post first).
On the other hand, these plaques are not exactly the same as advertising. They are designed by the city and simply note the corporation's name -- rather than being a space controlled by the company and designed by an ad agency. They're not that different from the donate-a-bench campaigns I've seen in other cities, where a new bench has a plaque indicating some individual donor (definitely better than ads-on-benches). It's good to encourage companies to feel civic-minded and to take part in improving the city, just as it's good to get individuals to do so. They might continue to do so even if the city was able to raise their taxes and chose to use this tax money to accelerate programs to aid the visually impaired. And perhaps it's not unreasonable to acknowledge their contribution in a restrained and dignified manner.
The comments on Torontoist are mixed -- I am curious to see what our readers think, and, especially, what your rationale is.
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IBM paid $44,700 for the signals: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/agendas/committees/ud/ud981130/it003d.htm
I don't buy the argument in the Torontoist article. On the one hand it's mentioned that "Toronto can only afford to add APS to 10–15 intersections each year." On the other, Dodge claims that sponsored intersections get "undue priority." That's true insofar as intersections that are potentially low in terms of the city's priority get worked on before intersections which the city considers more important, but it sounds like it doesn't affect the city's own schedule. They're constrained by money, not time, so the new installations are basically freebies.
The complaint really then is that the marginal impact of this money, to the city, is lower than it otherwise might have been had the city been able to direct it. But it's take it or leave it. Dodge writes "If corporations are willing to spend money to "contribute to civic improvement," why not just raise that money through taxation?" But they're not willing to voluntarily part with money for general works, and even if some were you can't "tax" only those corporations willing to pay. Even if you did raise $44700, one look at the newspaper will tell you where the money is going to end up. The cost to obtain the increase in budget to finance the "better" project sounds like it might eat into the difference in utility between the 'best' signal and the signal IBM gave us.
The city is free to refuse the donation on whatever grounds it wishes, but I'd keep it so long as the city continues to work on its own queue, which, from the sounds of it, makes up the bulk of the work anyway.
Correction: Val Dodge is a he, not a she. I know him.
Comment by William Denton
October 19, 2007 | 8:41 pm