City of Saskatoon spent $300,000 on Bus Rapid Transit rebrand

(Source: City of Saskatoon)

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation is criticizing the City of Saskatoon for spending more than $300,000 to brand the city’s bus rapid transit system as Link.

"We're looking at branding for an already existing transit system,” Gage Haubrich, the prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said.

“I don't think that Saskatoon taxpayers would be too troubled if they simply just stuck bus rapid transit on the bottom of them, instead of having to some brand fancy new colors and name.”

Haubrich is taking issue with the city spending $317,757 to hire design firm Entro as consultants rather than utilizing city marketing and communications staff for the rebrand, revealed in invoice documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“Some of the most egregious examples that we see as waste was the city paid about $25,000 just to come up with the name Link, and then included having 27 meetings, which, if you ask any taxpayer in Saskatoon, could have happened in an afternoon brainstorm session," he said. 

Haubrich also says the invoice chronicling city spending included roughly $40,000 to finalize the “look and feel” of the brand before ultimately landing on the existing colours and branding the city uses for Saskatoon Transit.

After years of planning, the city announced a fully-funded $327 million bus rapid transit system on June 28, with three orders of government working in partnership to see the project move ahead.

Less than a month later, the city announced Link as a rebranded name for the new branch of transit, saying the work culminated years of consulting work transit users, workers and an outside consulting firm to come up with the name.

According to the city, the brand change came in under a budget of $500,000 and encompasses a lot more than a simple renaming.

“It is important to keep in mind that the process involved much more than designing a logo or developing a name,” a statement from the city said.

“The work is based on an eight-step process which includes the brand and site audit, brand visioning and analysis, naming, brand development, design validation, visual language, brand guidelines, schematic design for wayfinding guidelines and completion of a wayfinding audit. A portion of the cost is associated with stakeholder and public engagement.”

The city also says the cost represents a fraction of the overall yearly budget.

“To give some perspective, the investment to date is about 0.1% of the total $250 million project funding,” a statement read “This amount was not unexpected since our research has shown that other cities who undertook similar BRT projects ranged from $300,000 to $500,000 for a marketing and branding component.”

Mayor Cynthia Block defended the spending saying the rebrand is part of a transformational shift for transit which will last for decades to come and the costs for the project are also partly covered by the federal and provincial governments.

"I think those are some of the pieces that I think get complex for people to unpack.  So you see a number, but what you don't realize is that it's been full funded through a way that doesn't have an influence on property tax."

She said it's all part of a much larger plan.

The city also pointed to other cities that have spent more on similar consultations.

In 2018, Calgary spent $366,000 to rebrand its new transit line as MAX, which excluded branding because that was completed in-house. York spent roughly $300,000 for marketing and consultations in 2005 and 2006.

"If you have a buddy who goes out and uses his whole grocery budget for beer and then you only use half, that doesn't mean that you still don't have a problem,” Haubrich said.

“You shouldn't be comparing cities that are also doing waste in this example."