Bike Share ​“Orphan” Ad Panel Set For Whalley

The greenbelt outside of the CVS on Whalley Avenue will soon be home to the new city bike share program’s first ​“orphan” ad panel: an eight-by-five-foot, double-sided advertisement that will not stand immediately alongside a group of lime-green bicycles available for short-term rental.

That was one of the takeaways of the City Plan Commission’s regular monthly meeting on the second floor of City Hall on Wednesday night, when commissioners voted unanimously to approve site plans for three new bike share stations and one independent ad panel.

Bike New Haven, which launched in February, allows for short-term bike rentals of 100 bicycles located at 17 stations throughout the city. The program plans to have 30 stations and 300 bikes on line by the end of April.

The bike share program is funded by a mix of membership fees, program-wide advertisements, and station-specific sponsorships, and not by city tax dollars. Bike New Haven’s contract with the city grants the program managers the right to erect and sell advertisements for one eight-by-five ad panel for each bike station in the program.

City planners learned during last month’s City Plan Commission, however, that the city Parks Department and the state Department of Transportation (DOT) have precluded Bike New Haven from erecting ad panels at stations located in city parks and at Union Station, respectively. That means that Bike New Haven’s managers and city advocates have to find new locations for six ​“orphan” ad panels that cannot be constructed alongside the rental stations they were initially intended to be paired with.

Commissioners shot down Bike New Haven’s plans last month to put up a second ad panel near the bike share station outside of the Stetson Library on Dixwell Avenue. Godfrey-Hoffman Associates Engineer Marcus Puttock and Bike New Haven Program Manager Carolyn Lusch came to this month’s commission meeting with a new suggested location for at least one of those ad panels: Whalley Avenue between Orchard Street and County Street.

This location is directly across the street from a new bike share station planned for the greenbelt outside of 202 Whalley Ave., just northwest of the Stop and Shop parking lot. That bike share station will have its own accompanying ad panel, meaning that two ad panels will stand across Whalley Avenue from one another: one next to a bike share station, one by itself.

“How do you figure where would be the best place for the orphaned panels to go?” asked City Plan Commission Vice Chair Leslie Radcliffe, who served as chair for the night as her colleague Ed Mattison was out of town on vacation.

“Whalley Avenue is heavily traveled, and highly visible,” Puttock explained. ​“And its directly across the street from the station we have, so we feel like there’s some tie to each other.”

He noted that the commission had asked Bike New Haven to present a few potential locations for ​“orphan” panels after the double Dixwell idea was poopooed, and that those new locations do not necessarily have to stand right alongside an existing station, with an existing ad panel.

“We knew it was more important that they [i.e. the ​“orphan” panels] not disrupt existing business, existing communities,” Puttock said.

“I think it’s a better solution to have it here in a commercial stretch than to have two outside a library,” said Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand.

The commission also approved site plans for two other new bike share stations at Linden and Orange Street near East Rock Pharmacy, and at Union Station.

Puttock and Lusch said they still need to get City Plan Commission approval for three more bike stations and five more ​“orphan” ad panels before the first phase of the program’s development is complete. If successful, the program plans to expand to 40 stations and 400 bicycles by the end of the calendar year.