Thomas Breen photo
The Dixwell bike share station: Is one ad enough?
Marchand: Wise to supersize?
The Stetson Library narrowly avoided a “double helping of hamburgers” on Wednesday night when city planners nixed, for now, a proposal to put up a second McDonald’s ad panel alongside the Dixwell Avenue bike share station.
During the regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission on the second floor of City Hall, a team of advocates for the city’s new bike share program, Bike New Haven, submitted an application for the construction of three new bike stations and the revision of one existing bike station within the public right-of-way.
Bike New Haven, which launched in February, allows for short-term bike rentals of over 100 bicycles located at 15 stations throughout the city. The program plans to have 30 stations and 300 bikes on line by the end of April.
According to a five-year contract approved by alders in May 2017, P3 Global Management (P3GM), the company that runs the bike share program, will not receive any financial assistance from the city in support of the bike share’s operations.
To help cover the cost of the program, P3GM has the right to sell ad space on eight-by-four-foot panels erected alongside each bike station.
The program’s first advertiser is McDonald’s. Some residents (and Independent commenters) have bristled at the sight of large cheeseburger, milkshake and coffee advertisements standing alongside a new transit system designed, in part, to promote a more healthful way of getting around the city.
Deputy City Transit Director Michael Pinto (center) at Wednesday night’s meeting with Godfrey-Hoffman Associates Engineer Marcus Puttock and Bike New Haven Program Manager Carolyn Lusch.
On Wednesday night, Deputy City Transit Director Michael Pinto, Godfrey-Hoffman Associates Engineer Marcus Puttock, and Bike New Haven Program Manager Carolyn Lusch appeared before the City Plan Commission to discuss a site plan review for three new stations and one updated station.
The three new proposed bike share stations, at the State-Pulaski parking lot, Grand Avenue and James Street, and Columbus Avenue near Roberto Clemente School, easily garnered the commision’s unanimous approval, and are on track for imminent construction.
The proposed revision to the Dixwell Avenue station, however, elicited intense skepticism from the commissioners when they learned that the change would result in more images of cheeseburgers and milkshakes directly outside of a public library branch frequented by children.
Pinto told the commissioners that the bike share contract approved by the alders allows P3GN one ad panel for every bike share station. However, as the program rolls out, the company has found out that it will not be able to put up ad panels at each of the approved and proposed stations.
Pinto said that the city parks department will not allow for ad panels to be erected at the four bike share stations that stand on city park land, and that the state Department of Transportation will not allow for an ad panel to be put up at a forthcoming bike station at Union Station.
The upshot, Pinto said, is that P3GN has five “orphan” ad panels that cannot be placed alongside certain bike share stations, but need to be put somewhere if the company is to recoup all of its potential advertising revenue.
The application before the commissioners on Wednesday night proposed that a second eight-by-four ad panel be installed 158 feet north of the existing bike share station at 200 Dixwell Ave., right outside of Stetson.
Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand asked if the “orphan” panels could simply be set up somewhere near the park and train station locations.
“What we wanted to avoid was having an ad panel not associated with a bike station at all,” Lusch said. She said that the five bike stations in question did not have any appropriate nearby sites for the relocation of the ad panels.
Marchand asked why the proposed second panel on Dixwell should be be 100 feet, rather than 10 feet, away from the bike share station.
“Two ads right next to each other that are the same aren’t quite as effective as two that are a little bit removed but still have some correlation to each other,” Puttock said.
Marchand said that he recognizes that the program’s advertiser may not always be McDonald’s, but that he was struggling to dissociate the theoretical ad panels from their actual, current contents.
“It’s hard to divorce my mind from what’s currently the case,” he said. “Currently, [this proposal] means a double helping of hamburgers next to a library. Next month it could be a double helping of Home Depot or some airline. Part of what’s settling in on us is what it means to be breaking ground on selling ad space in the public right of way.”
Considering the current advertiser, Marchand asked if his fellow commissioners really wanted to approve more fast food advertisements near a library visited by lots of kids.
“We have always brought these [applications] to the commission because it’s an important issue,” Pinto said. “But there is some question as to whether this commission actually has jurisdiction over the setting of these sites in the right-of-way.”
He said that he and P3GN are interested in getting buy-in from the public, and have thus far sent every station application through the aldermanic approval process.
But, he said, the commissioners should understand that the vendor invests extensive time and energy and research resources into every station application, and that city plan staff rigorously scrutinizes those applications even before they make their way before the commission.
“These are difficult questions,” he acknowledged, “but these locations have been looked at and reviewed extensively before they come before you.”
He also said that the advertisements are only advertisements, not requirements to buy whatever product is presented.
“No one has to purchase anything that’s being advertised,” he said. “Just the same way you take the subway in New York City, you are not required to buy a Cartier watch, or a McDonald’s cheeseburger.”
He said that, through their bike share ads, McDonald’s is currently subsidizing a new transit system in New Haven, and, through their CT Transit bus ads, they’re also subsidizing the city’s primary mode of public transit.
“That’s great,” Marchand replied. “And we certainly thank you for all that hard work. We may ask you to do some more.”
He recommended that the commissioners send back the proposal to the applicants and have them return next month with suggestions for a handful of alternative sites for one or more of the “orphan” ad panels.
City Plan Commission Chair Ed Mattison.
“We have been involved in years for trying to improve the streetscape in that particular area,” Commission Chair Ed Mattison said about the Stetson block of Dixwell. “Given the amount of time and effort the city is putting in to making that piece of Dixwell Avenue to work, I think it is not unreasonable for us to ask you to reconsider that. You may come back and say, well, we can’t find anything better. That’s reasonable. If that’s what you tell us, then you tell us that.”
The applicants agreed to talk with Stetson Librarian Diane Brown and other nearby stakeholders before moving forward with the double ad panel proposal for Dixwell station.
They also promised return next month with additional proposed locations for the “orphan” ad panels, including at least one location that is not near any current or proposed bike share station, just to gauge commissioners’ thoughts on the value or drawback of having truly untethered ad panels at various locations throughout the city.