TransLink reverses course on cancelling popular poetry program

TransLink heard your words

Poetry in Transit lives

Verses will still ride

TransLink has reversed course on its decision to discontinue the popular Poetry in Transit program, a wildly popular annual program that had featured poetry in spaces normally allocated to ads on its buses. It has been running since 1996, with the literary works of 10 different poets — usually numbering around 500 — spending a year on buses and bus shelters before moving to other transit in B.C.

The company initially cited “significant financial pressures” behind the program’s cancellation, despite the program being entirely managed and funded by Books B.C., formerly known as the Association of Book Publishers of B.C.

But a flood of media stories and an online petition with almost 2,000 signatures convinced Translink to change course.

“We’ve seen through the response from community members just how much Poetry in Transit means to people and the important role it has played in connecting them with arts and culture for 30 years,” a spokesperson said Saturday. “We’re pleased to be able to continue showcasing B.C. poetry within our current advertising space availability.”

Books B.C. had run the program’s selection process as well as paying for and printing the poem cards, with TransLink providing $265,000 in-kind ad space, but didn’t contribute any money.

Pattison Outdoor Advertising had won the contract to handle ad rights for TransLink in 2025, but the company said the decision to cut the program was its own.

Well-known Canadian poet Sandy Shreve came up with the idea after being inspired by poetry in New York’s subways, as well as London’s Poems in the English city’s Underground program, and brought the idea to then-B.C. Transit CEO Mike O’Conner in the 1980s. O’Conner embraced the idea and in 1996 Vancouver became the first Canadian city to feature poems on public transit.

Shreve died on Feb. 8, 2026.

— With files from Denise Ryan