making money for metro

check out this dcist story. sommer writes about the possibility that metro will open up a lot more of their surface area (think everything but windows) to advertising. in a perfect world, i would like to see no ads on metro, it takes away from the design, but i know that's just not possible. any way that metro can make money without raising fares (and if that can keep them from cutting back service) is a good thing to me.

that's why i get so damn FRUSTRATED sometimes when i'm riding the bus. i'm sure that metro's ad sales hierarchy goes something like this:

ads in stations > ads in trains > ads on outside of bus > ads on inside of bus

if that is the case, then the inside of the bus is probably lowest priority, and most difficult to sell, because they probably get less bang for the buck. it would explain why i see more public service announcements in the buses than ads, especially on the routes i ride (g8, g2, 80, p6), since our routes aren't on the rich side of town.

but whoever is in charge of metrobus ads needs to be fired. i mean, the g8 tonight was full of p.s.a.'s touting the dc smoking ban. that's wonderful, but the ads happily shout "coming in january"! i mean, can't the ad salespeople at least sell the space for some newer p.s.a.'s, ones that are a little more current? i see this all the time, and it just frustrates me when metro doesn't do everything in it's capability to fill it's own coffers. why am i surprised, though?