We have some exciting news to share with our Buzzer blog readers and everyone who has been part of I Love Transit Week since it’s inception in 2009—it’s now award winning!

The 2017 edition of I Love Transit Week, our week-long celebration of all things public transit, won a First Place Award in the 2018 American Pubic Transportation Assocation (APTA) AdWheel Awards for Best Marketing and Communications Educational Effort (Special Event).

The annual AdWheel Awards, arguably the most prestigious marketing and communications award program in public transportation, recognizes the outstanding efforts of APTA members. TransLink competed among “public transportation systems with more than 20 million annual passenger trips,” which means we were up against some of the largest public transit systems in North America!

The 2017 I Love Transit campaign, while still celebrating our love of transit, expanded to included a week of free transit on bus for kids. This year’s focus was to get youth excited to use transit, and enhance their positive perceptions and understanding of public transit.

Throughout the entire week, Oct. 2–6, K-12 students rode the bus for free and teachers were challenged to unleash their inner explorer and take learning beyond the classroom through field trips on transit. As well, two new contests were launched where classes could win DayPasses for field trips or a behind-the-scenes “I Love Transit Camp” field trip to TransLink’s operating facilities. We also added theme for the first time, Beyond—the future of transit in Metro Vancouver. 

This is TransLink’s fourth AdWheel Award recognizing our social media initiatives, previously snagging three awards in 2012 for best social networking (Pet Peeves campaign, best blog (The Buzzer) and best Twitter account (@TransLink). The Pet Peeves campaign also won a prestigious Gold Quill Award of Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators. Last year, TransLink won an AdWheel for its Evergreen Means Go campaign.

Putting I Love Transit together couldn’t have been done without the huge contributions of our larger TransLink Customer Communications and Public Affairs team…especially our good pals in TravelSmart! We’d also like to congratulate our colleagues from across North America on their APTAwins!

We’re starting to plan for I Love Transit 2018, so stay tuned for what we have in store!