Item - 2019.IE3.7

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee recommends that:

1. City Council authorize the General Manager, Transportation Services to enter into and execute an additional amending agreement to the Street Furniture Agreement dated July 20, 2007 with Astral Media Outdoor (Toronto) G. P. to implement the following objectives with no financial impact to the City or to Astral Media's capital program expenditure for the Coordinated Street Furniture Program, and in a form acceptable to the City Solicitor:

a. Allow for the implementation of a transit shelter heating kit to be installed at select transit shelters from within the existing envelope for Astral Media's capital program expenditure.

b. Allow for the implementation of a new combination postering and wayfinding board to be installed at select transit shelters from within the existing envelope for Astral Media's capital program expenditure.

c. Allow for the retirement and disposal of obsolete street furniture elements at the discretion of the General Manager, Transportation Services.

d. Extend the amount of time for posters placed by the public to remain on postering boards and postering columns by reducing the inspection and cleaning frequency from once per week to once every two weeks; additionally, decrease  the frequency of inspections and cleaning for publication box structures and benches from once per week to once every two weeks, and commensurately increase the frequency of litter receptacle inspections and cleaning in high-demand areas from once per week to twice per week.

e. Set a specific timeframe of within seven calendar days for the reinstallation of non-powered elements that have been removed due to construction coordination.

f. Increase the accountability of Astral Media to the public who contact their Commitment to Quality contact centre by requiring Astral Media to provide the public with a means of tracking their reported issues.

g. Allow for Schedule A (Street Furniture Elements and Specifications) of the Street Furniture Agreement to be updated as necessary and under the authority of the General Manager, Transportation Services to reflect design modifications and improvements to elements such as those referenced in the report and shown in Attachment 1 to the report (March 19, 2019) from the General Manager, Transportation Services.

The purpose of this report is to receive Council authority to enter into and execute an additional amending agreement to the Street Furniture Agreement to make changes to the specific allocations of street furniture elements, maintenance and inspection of elements, timeframe for non-powered elements to be re-installed and to implement an improved customer service procedure.

The Coordinated Street Furniture Program is a public-private partnership with Astral Media to install, operate, and maintain approximately 24,500 pieces of street furniture over a 20-year period (currently in Year 12). The Agreement with Astral began in 2007, and follows a fiscal year of September 1 to August 31. As of September 1, 2018, the Program has resulted in the installation of more than 20,800 elements with a current asset value of approximately $197 million, or 79.9 percent of the total required investment, and has provided the City with $194.7 million in advertising revenue.

The ten-year mark of the Agreement provided an opportunity to modernize, retrofit, or upgrade the street furniture designs delivered through the program, as well as an informal opportunity to identify systemic challenges and gaps. Following the mid-term review, this report recommends upgrading select transit shelters with user-activated heaters during the winter months, as well as upgrading postering boards affixed to transit shelters by integrating the TO360 Wayfinding program.

Modifications to the Agreement are also recommended to allow for the removal and disposal of obsolete furniture, an extended postering period, increased cleaning of litter receptacles, a specific timeframe for returning non-powered elements (e.g., benches, litter bins, postering columns, etc.) removed for construction, a mechanism in which the public can follow-up with Astral Media on their requests, and administrative updates to reflect design modifications to litter receptacles, transit shelters, information pillars and smaller format benches. These changes are proposed without impacting Astral Media's total capital expenditure for the Coordinated Street Furniture Program, nor the advertising revenue to be received by the City.