Let me be the first to congratulate you on buying the naming rights to one of our fine subway stations! You’re probably wondering if there are extras in the contract, things you should know about your new home.

We’re sorry about the holes in the walls. The stations are getting on and we suspected that there might be problems, so we took a look. We will put the walls back in April , June , September , maybe next year. Have we asked you about sponsoring the walls too? We’ve cleaned up a lot of them, but every little contribution helps!

The ceilings are a bit grotty in a few stations. We were planning to fix that too, but a scheme to develop a new easy-to-maintain ceiling tile system was cut from our budget. Could we interest you in sponsoring that?

The collectors’ booths are a bit of a mess in some stations, and we know all those posters don’t look nice, especially the ones that are a few months out of date. We’re working on it. Could we interest you in buying poster space on the booths? We really would rather sell it to you than put useful information on them, and our only request is that you leave an opening so that riders can talk to the collector.

Signage. Yes, we know. Our signage isn’t the greatest in some stations, but we look on this as a museum of design. This is Toronto, and artsy-fartsy stuff doesn’t count for much here. We are prepared to take down all of the signs and replace them with new ones in your corporate colours and typeface. We regret that this is an extra charge option.

Announcements. All station announcements will include your company name, and a short message, changeable monthly, tailored to a specific campaign. In keeping with our practice on print advertising, we will ensure that the new messages are posted on our trains no later than two weeks after any special offers are no longer valid.

For a small added fee, we will include your logo on our transfers. They are sure to become collector’s items! This offer will end once the entire system converts to Presto smart cards, but the more affluent among you could afford to sponsor that entire subsystem. Please talk to our friends at Metrolinx about regional sponsorship opportunities.

Escalators and elevators. Your contract does not include any guarantees that the vertical transportation elements within your station will be reliably operating at any time. We regret that this could produce a poor impression on some target audiences. To compensate, we invite you to sponsor one of our Wheel Trans buses.

Our trains are an important part of the transit system, and we will endeavour to have them pass through your station reasonably often. Although service may at times be irregular, this gives you an opportunity to market to a captive audience. Video advertising screens will be programmed to launch special advertising campaigns when there is an extended delay.

We regret that the shiny exteriors you saw in our brochure only are available on brand new equipment. Older cars are washed as and when we can get them to the one working car wash in our system. If you have purchased exterior advertising on our trains, we regret that it may not be legible or attractive to your target audience. Our plans for platform doors will completely eliminate the need to wash train exteriors, and this problem will solve itself in a few decades.

Are you wondering why your station doesn’t have your name on it yet? We’ve issued the work order, but there have been problems with co-ordination and we hope to have the station looking bright and new to your specifications in a few months. Trust us!

What? You’re want a refund?