The bus shelters of Toronto that have ad spaces are managed by Viacom Outdoor which is an advertising company owned by the Viacom conglomerate which also owns companies like CBS, MTV, Paramount, King World, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Blockbuster and Simon & Schuster. Viacom also took over the transit shelter advertising duties from Mediacom in 1999 when after a series of mergers Viacom became the owner of Mediacom's parent company. Many of Toronto's bus shelters still display Mediacom's sticker. All the shelters that do not have ad spaces are managed by Metro Transportation.
This is the classic type of bus shelter that can still be seen in many places in Toronto in the single side panel version. This double side panel version is located at the northbound stop on Keele at the Northwestern General Hospital.
This is the most common type of bus shelter used in Toronto. There are many versions of this type of shelter including versions with a single side entrance. Some of them also vary in the type of seats that may be inside and on the location of the seats.
This is also a common type of shelter that is seen in the city in two and three panel versions
This type of shelter may also have the chairs inside. There are also a few double panel versions.
The only place that I've seen these so far is along the north side of Steeles.
These types of shelters are found in the downtown area along the streetcar routes. This one is on Bathurst so it also serves route 310 during the night.
This is the newest type of shelter that is appearing on the streets of Toronto. All of them have chairs inside as well as a copy of the ride guide on the wall. The ride guide, however, is a cutoff version that does not include any of the areas that have TTC service, but lie outside of Toronto. This shelter comes in several types. One type has a single ad on the inside and outside of the shelter, while a second type has a roll of 3 ad posters (continuously rolling in the following order 1-2-3-2-1...) on the outside facing wall and a single ad on the wall facing the inside of the shelter. As a guide to how this type of shelter is built the first picture shows the first stage of construction of such a shelter at a bus stop on the SW corner of Harbord and St. George.
Sometimes the shelters are wrapped in ads. The first shelter is located one stop south of Davenport on Bathurst (west side) is seen here wrapped for Globe and Mail. The picture was taken on August 27, 2004. The second shelter is located on the northwest corner of Bay and Queen and wears an ad for L'Oreal. The picture was taken on May 24, 2005. The third shelter is on Yonge at Greenfield and it wears an ad for Herbal Essences Citrus Lift hair care products. The picture was taken on August 9, 2005.
