If you live in Chicago, you know a few things. First, politicians are corrupt. Second, public transportation doesn’t usually get updated for thirty years or so. And even then, it’s thirty years behind. But in a story that makes me happy for my hometown, Apple is giving $4 million to refurbish the subway station on Halsted.
Halsted, for those of you that don’t know, is the stop just before the Steppenwolf theater, in one of the heaviest shopping districts in Chicago. There’s a Whole Foods, a Crate & Barrel, and a whole mess of urbanites, wandering the streets. But Apple wants to build an Apple store there as well, to supplement the one they already have on Michigan Avenue. So their solution?
“[I]n exchange for the improvements the CTA will lease the bus turnaround to Apple at no cost for 10 years, with options on four, five-year extensions. The CTA will also give Apple “first rights of refusal” for naming the station and placing advertising within the station, if the CTA later decides to offer those rights.”
Hey, sounds good. You’re not going to make major coinage by living off of bus fares, as any alderman could tell you. But the CTA is a great place to advertise, and if Apple could make the station itself a giant advertisement, I would not mind that in the slightest.
The store is looking to open in September of 2010.
Comments
max
October 27th, 2009 - 10:37:48 AM
i think this is great too. while corporate advertisement is never all that awesome -- even when that corporation is Apple -- it's quite hard to have any serious qualms when they are also funding public transportation. let's hope this becomes a trend. would be great.
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Fathers day
November 17th, 2009 - 4:15:02 AM
I read the post and found it quite interesting about the idea. I think that it would be a great idea to fund the public transportation. It will not occur so fast but it would a very interesting change to take place.
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