Damn, you're negative! I see "Sse transit for the long haul. Use a car to complete your trip if needed.".

Not to me.

A "getaway car" is used to move rapidly away from the scene of the crime or to get to a mountain/beach cabin. If you use a getaway car in lieu of public transit you are a habitual bank robber.

I see it as saying, "If you rob a bank, don't ride the bus."

Bitch bitch bitch! Fuck! If this is so damn offensive how about e-mailing iGo in Chicago and see if they will set up there car sharing service in Seattle?

Anyone can bitch (as we have learned on Slog), so how about offering solutions?

ECB,

I am a huge fan so please see this as the life line it is intended.

SWITCH TO DECAF

ECB, I think you are right. It does seem counterintuitive for an ad like that to be on a bus, of all places.

My biggest gripe, though, is with the terrible creative. The grimmest possible layout, lame copy...not even the font is interesting. If that's how they portray "zip," then, well...I'll stick with the bus, thanks.

hear hear StrangerDanger. About ready to flip the dummy bit on ECB. seriously.

Ordinarily I'd have a problem with this, but then I remembered how much Metro sucks.

I agree that the ad's not particularly effective, though.

I think that ad is telling me to carjack someone.

So when one argues that light rail is superior to the bus, is that also anti-transit?

But bus transit DOES suck.

Agreeing with sociallytangent on this one.

It's probably a fairly enticing ad campaign when you're on the 28 that was 10 minutes late, is full to the gills and standing room only.

how do you take transit to the beach by an ocean?

It says to me "Use transit for the daily grind and use us for a weekend getaway."

...but get offended. I hear it's fun for you.

Ok, ok THIS particular execution is anti-transit. But if you want to get off the bus and switch to car commuting, I can't think of a worse way to do it than Zip Car. Waaaay too expensive.

JTC--almost all transit advertising creative is nearly unbearably bad. Which is weird, because, for outdoor, the advertiser has you in their clutches for a long time. You'd think they'd at least try. Although I do like the "perfect smiles" harpy--she both fascinates and terrifies me.

Well, yes the ad is anti-transit to some degree, but it makes perfect sense for them to slam bus service: every bus rider is one more person who isn't using Zipcar for their transportation needs. I just don't see this as something to get mad about.

Personally, I never understood why Flexcar advertised themselves as a compliment to public transit. The superior business model is to promote your company (like Zipcar is doing) as a better alternative to public transit. May not be ideal from a "get people to use transit and not drive" perspective, but that's capitalism, folks!

Zipcar is fucking lame compared to Flexcar (for ALL the reasons ECB has pointed out), which is why I'm cancelling my membership a month before I'm due to pay the annual membership fee.

I turn 25 in January. I can just rent a truck for a day when I need it.

And thankfully I walk to work, so I don't have to deal with the goddamn busses. They fucking suck. If someday I can't live this close to my job around in Seattle, I'm cashing out and moving to Portland. They have a transit system I like.

Newsflash: transit DOES suck.

The Seattle bus system is ass, and is hopelessly inadequate for people whose time is valuable, who have things they have to get done.

A significant percentage of the ridership of any given bus knows this all too well, and while they're sitting there fuming as their bus inches slowly forward asymptotically, this ad will suggest a real solution.

See, that's the point of ads: if it's something you want, maybe you'll see it and then go get it. If not, not. Getting pissed off over a bus ad, especially an extraordinarily apropos one like this, is crazy.

The bus can suck, especially if you catch the drunken hobo express to Belltown!

But then again zipcar can be a rip off.

So, what to do? Over pay for a zipcar or put up with the smell of ass, day old alcohol and feet.

sure looks like it's saying "transit sucks" to me.

How the fuck do you get "transit sucks" out of that? This is why I don't pay attention to anything you say.

Outrageous! Why, just the other day, I rode a city bus from Seattle to my vacation home in Calgary. The Metro is a perfect vehicle for weekend getaways.

Alternative explanation: most of the people on the bus worth advertising to are commuting to and from their jobs. These people are often found sitting in traffic daydreaming about their next getaway. The beach would be nice on a day like today, wouldn't it? But you can't take the bus to the beach -- not most of them, at any rate. Golden Gardens is nice and all, but it's not really a "getaway", now, is it?

They're marketing to a key demographic - people who don't own cars. Those people are likely found on the bus. Even you, ECB, you who have never been critical of anything that metro transit offers, have at one point or another wished for an alternative to sitting next to Suzy Cellphone and Joey BO while crawling through the Ride Free Zone. It's not like they're suggesting you buy a car. They're suggesting you use one occasionally.

Maybe they mean "getaway" as in, to the mountains, or Ocean Shores, or the like.

And, ECB, your "transit sucks" interpretation might be fair if
Metro went to the mountains, or Ocean Shores, or the like.

But it doesn't, and it shouldn't, so WTF?

But was the picture of the car in the ad taken from above or below it? Personally, I feel like that car is about to drive over me.

This just in...

Water is wet!

Poo is stinky!

Riding the bus DOES suck!

I'd like to see an analysis of all articles on slog, sorted by author, with a subjective "whining to actually original content/reporting" ratio. There should be some cutoff point past which you are fired.

Transit Haiku:

Bus sucks. ZipCar sucks.
(Even Chicago's El sucks).
Get a bike, sucker!

@27 That would allow a loophole for Charles Mudede to get through. If we're placing restrictions, it's got to be tighter than that.

I agree with Dawgson. It seems like an ad for a vacation car...

But whatever. Even if it is anti-transit, who cares?

ECB, because the ad doesn't say "cut up your bus pass and buy a car". The fine print says "cars by the hour or day", which, unless you are a complete idiot, means cars for short-term use, not as an alternative to transit.

I guess you're lucky that the only problems you have in life are offensive tshirts and Zipcar ads.

*permanent* alternative to transit

Why are you so angry all of the time?

I've used Flexcar & Zipcar for the last 3 years and I don't feel they are anti-transit, nor is the ad! They are just making people aware of an extended transit network available just a few steps from their bus stop.

Hmm, let's see - illegal war, torture, and violations of Habeus Corpus from your national government, King County is looking to zero out a lot of worthy programs because they dug a massive budget hole, 7 of your City Councilmembers just stuck the rest of us with the tax bill to subsidize new $1300/month apartments that no one I know will be able to afford, and THIS is what you choose to get all worked up about?

Some perspective, please.

Per

Getaway car implies using transit most of the time and using a car for a getway to Lake Chelan.

Mind you, this would be more expensive than just renting a cool high-mpg car from any typical car rental place ...

oh, and @11 for the lose.

Today, cause I ran late, I took the bus from Fremont at the end of my block to my work at UW Tower (two blocks from the line end) in 12 minutes.

Totally non-sucky, didn't have to bike, didn't have to open/close garage door, etc.

Faster than driving when you include parking both ends.

@35,

OK, so to her credit ECB does have a piece in the new issue out today about the MFTE debacle, but she still doesn't sound as mad about it...

King County Metro should hire Bernhard Goetz as a consultant. He could help clean up the downtown lines.

It's called marketing, not an essay in the Atlantic Monthly. And anyone reading the stupid, ass ugly ads on the bus doesn't have something better to do. Get a book and save yourself the headache.

Q: Who are most liely to need occasional hourly car rental? A: People who don't own or have ready access to a car. Q: Where would there be a large amount of people who don't own cars who might read an advertisement? A: On buses.
This is marketing and I don't see it as particulaly anti-transit.

get on the over crowded bus after your shift at your cubicle, and then tell me that it is a joy to be smeared by the smelly armpits of the person next to you.

*sigh*

seattle bus service does not "suck"

yes, some routes are lame/slow/etc, but others are very speedy/clean/etc.

marketing car sharing services to bus riders does not suck.

but these stupid zipcar bus ads do.

rock on, ECB.

I wish a bus went from Issaquah to Kent. Then I wouldn't have to carpool. If they offered such a thing, perhaps the Renton Curves wouldn't be stop-and-go for 14 hours a day.

As it is you have to go through the Bellevue transit hub and the whole thing takes like 2 hours. Pass.

I think public transit sucks. And that ad is directed at people who agree with me. People are allowed to have that opinion, aren't they? And businesses are allowed to cater to such people, aren't they?

Look, Erica, clearly you aren't the target market for Zipcar. They rent cars, you hate cars. Why don't you just stop being their customer?

@45 - no, you're not allowed to have that terrorist-supporting anti-transit opinion.

We have a War with al-Qaeda, who get more than 90 percent of their money and volunteers from Saudi Arabia.

So, go sit silently next to ECB and STFU while the wheelchair loads.

Will in Seattle @ 46:

:-)

I guess that in ECB world, ads for Hawaiian vacations or ski trips to Whistler really mean that "Seattle sucks." Gay pride parades imply that straights should be ashamed. Obama's winning the candidacy is a direct affront to Hillary and all her.. nevermind.

How about a car card that reads: "Ride this bus till the day you die." Transit-positive, no?

Instead, I would suggest transit-positive ads showing entwined couples, saying "Ride the bus. Get laid." Or tipsy people under the heading "This bus stops at all bars." Or a bunch of Mexicans under the heading, "Here's how to get to work when you're unlicensed and uninsured."