Thomas Breen photo
Ads, no bikes: Lawrence Street station.
New Haven’s fledgling bike-sharing operation has left town.
The operation, Bike New Haven, pulled all 300 of its rentable bicycles from city streets four months ago because of planned software and hardware upgrades.
Now the company has announced that the bicycles won’t be returning to New Haven any time soon — not because of tech problems, but because of Covid-19.
The bike share company delivered that news via a mass email sent out Tuesday morning with the subject line: “Refund Notice.”
“Riders, as you know, we temporarily suspended bike share services to upgrade the system to a new operating system,” the email reads. “Our intention was to improve service and provide frequently requested features. We were working diligently to prepare the system to be relaunched, and we were looking forward to introducing the final product. Unfortunately, given the current instability created by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the delay has been prolonged indefinitely.
“Taking into consideration the financial impact and strain that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about, Bike New Haven will be refunding users with an existing and active subscription to the Bike New Haven platform. User accounts will be refunded and deactivated to prevent any further recurring charges. If you need any further assistance, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).”
The email goes on to link to public safety information regarding Covid-19 as provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
While the short-term rental bikes themselves are gone — and have been gone since Jan. 1—the eight-by-four-foot ad panels installed at nearly all of the 30 bike share stations citywide remain.
The bike share system is privately run, by a New York City-based company called P3 Global Management (P3GM). It formally launched in New Haven in February 2018, and allowed cyclists to rent available bikes for up to 45 minutes at a time.
The five-year contract that P3GM signed with the city in 2017 allows the company to sustain operations in New Haven through revenue raised from subscribers, sponsors, and advertisers. The city does not subsidize the program taxpayer-funded dollars.
Public heath tips at one of the bike-less Bike New Haven stations on Orange Street.
Since the novel coronavirus outbreak in mid-March, P3GM has worked with the city transportation department to post public safety tips from the CDC on some of the extant ad panels.
Some, like the one at the top of this article near the corner of Lawrence Street and State Street, currently displays an advertisement for the snack McCain Dip’n Wedges.
“The public health response requested all available ad panels from the bike share system for support of the public health messaging. To date 35 panels have been used at no cost (other than printing),” city transit chief Doug Hausladen told the Independent by email Tuesday.
When asked about the future of bike share in New Haven, Hausladen wrote, “The Bike New Haven program is, among hundreds of other city programs, being monitored as the City’s response to COVID continues. As this is a no-cost program to the City of New Haven, it is our hope that the Bike New Haven program will be able to return should the public health emergency allow safe operations of the contracted service to resume.”
Update: On Wednesday afternoon, P3GM’s Lourdes Martinez told the Independent by email that “relaunching at this time is not prudent considering current circumstances around the globe. P3GM’s JerseyBike system is still operating but has seen a 76% decline in utilization since the middle of March. Across the industry, micromobility vendors have seen declines in utilization and revenue between 40% and 100%, as reported by the New York Times and others.
When asked what Bike New Haven plans to do with the roughly 40 advertisement panels still standing at bike share stations throughout the city, Martinez wrote, “In New Haven, advertising contracts that were lined up have been canceled as outside partners focus on preserving resources due to the current economic uncertainty. Currently, there aren’t any ongoing paid campaigns. We are in communication with the City of New Haven to use the ad panel spaces for their Summer Meals program, in addition to the COVID-19 awareness campaign.”
Bike New Haven pulled all 300 of its bikes from city streets on Jan. 1 with the intention of transitioning from the Noa technology platform to a new one called TapBike.
“The intention of the transition is to upgrade service and improve return accuracy,” a Dec. 20, 2019 email about the proposed change read. “Users will now be able to reserve bikes at stations in advance and rent multiple bikes at a time. The bike share program will remain station based with a total of 300 bicycles in the fleet.”
On Jan. 31, with still no bikes on city streets, the company sent out another email stating that the new bike share system should “be relaunched in the coming weeks.”