Cash Strapped NJ Transit Takes Bids For Naming Rights To Stations, Trains

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All aboard the Cheetos Express! Or, step right up to the New Jersey Star-Ledger‘s favorite suggestion: the Sprite Platform at Coca-Cola Transit Center.

Sound unrealistic? If the New Jersey Transit System accepts an advertising bid from Titan Outdoor, sponsored trains like these could hit the tunnels soon.

Facing a cash crunch, New Jersey Transit is accepting bids for naming rights to its assets — stations, trains, the works. The transit system’s current advertising firm, Titan Outdoor, won out in the bidding process. But not so fast, says one competing bidder. Gateway Outdoor Advertising has filed a protest to the transit system’s decision.

The Star-Ledger reports:

Craig Heard, president and CEO of Gateway Outdoor Advertising in Hackettstown, said NJ Transit did not allow his company into the final round of bidding even though Gateway’s $65 million offer of guaranteed revenue was nearly 20 percent more than the $53.3 million guaranteed by the current contractor, the Titan Outdoor advertising agency.

“Basically they don’t agree that the company that we selected is the right company,” New Jersey Transit spokesperson Penny Basset Hackett told TPM. “They think they should have the deal.”

Hackett said she hopes the protest will be resolved soon, so the contract with Titan can be approved in July.

The naming component of the contract is new, she said. As far as what corporate sponsorship could be slapped on busses and trains, she wasn’t sure.

“We haven’t gotten to any specificity,” she said.

But there will be limits. Anything that would be decided, she said, would have to be approved by the transit system. Hackett cautioned that “nothing has been decided at this point, emphasizing that the contract generates a significant amount of revenue for the transit system, which helps offset its costs.

Read more here.

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