Yesterday, we broke the story of TransLink putting up 13 TVs for half a million taxpayer bucks, and the fact most of them weren’t working anymore. Several outlets reported the story, including this Province piece and a great CBC TV story (including puzzled transit users wondering how the blank screen above them could cost $40,000+).

It only took TransLink’s crack communications department five hours to get their side of the $40,000 TV story out—and their defence was weak-kneed at best. 

First of all, they claimed the usual nonsense that they needed to “correct misinformation.” Well, the information came straight from TransLink documents provided to the CTF under the Freedom of Information Act.

They recap what we told you and highlighted the fact they convinced Ottawa to pay $391,000 of the $523,000 tab. Of course, that’s still YOUR tax dollars and TransLink led the project and spent the dough.

TransLink tried to defend the expenditure by saying it included installation, software, etc. We never said otherwise—but the fact remains, these 13 TVs cost taxpayers half a million bucks.

A CTF site tour last week showed that only four of the 13 screens were still working. TransLink claims six are operating today—still less than 50 per cent! Doesn’t that make you feel it was all worth it?

They acknowledge that the project will be “reviewed” in 2013. Hopefully, our release of the facts will convince them it’s not worth spending more money on this system.

Incidentally, I received an email today from a local company that said they would provide robust, custom-designed, military-grade screens for free, and pay TransLink a percentage of all advertising they sold.

I like this idea for two reasons: it doesn’t cost taxpayers anything, and private companies will very likely keep the screens in much better repair than TransLink. Look at the screens on the SkyTrain platforms themselves: the company that sells advertising on them loses money when they’re offline—so they work very hard to keep them in constant service. That’s the beauty of the private sector!

TransLink says the $40,000 screens are only needed for emergencies and safety issues anyway, so having ads on them during other times should be of little concern to them.

No wonder TransLink refused several media requests for interviews yesterday. I wouldn’t want to be out there trying to defend this waste of money either.