Municipal officials revealed what Mayor Darrin Canniff said is the first piece of “movable art” recently – a CK Transit bus wrapped in images from around Chatham-Kent.
Impact Graphics wrapped the bus in the scenes at no cost to taxpayers. Images adorning the bus, which will operate on the route to and from St. Clair College, include identifiable buildings and people, top pastimes such as fishing, tourist attractions and events and a salute to local agriculture.
“Impact Graphics stepped up big time. People are going to ask, ‘How much is this going to cost the taxpayers?’ Zero. Impact Graphics sponsored this wrap,” Canniff said. “We had it designed internally, so there is no cost to doing this.”
The mayor said unveiling the bus was the final stage in a two-month process where organizers solicited feedback to try to ensure all municipal wards were featured on the bus.
“We wanted to just have fun with it and make it all about C-K,” he said.
Canniff said this is the first of what he hopes are many C-K buses to be adorned with images.
“We’d love to have basically the whole fleet of Chatham-Kent buses wrapped like this in some way,” he said. “I’d like to see all sorts of different themes.”
Canniff said he will encourage the public to provide input into future themes and work with local media to determine what people would like to see.
“We then start finding champions to run with it and finding sponsors that are willing to step up, add their name and pay for it,” he said.
Why stop at transit buses? Canniff sees other municipal vehicles getting treated as well.
“Buses are one thing. We want to look at a lot of other vehicles. We ant to see what we can do with those as well over time,” he said.
Canniff said he believes the wrapped vehicles will create a buzz factor in several ways, brightening up people’s days.
“This is a travelling art show. It’s part of how we beautify our community and we want to start doing a lot more of that,” he said. “This will put a smile on someone’s face.”
