Monumental Question

Will the next advertising stanchion from Bike New Haven, the city’s bike share program, be erected cheek by jowl with a 1905 Civil War monument? And is that appropriate?

And instead of beer or national-chain burgers, could the bike station advertisements feature more bike-appropriate healthful concerns like a local gym, or even mom and pop stores?

Those questions emerged Monday night at the regular meeting of the East Rock Management Team, which drew 30 people to the community room at mActivity Fitness Center on Nicoll Street.

Back in February, after months of public hearings in front of the Board of Alders, the city signed a contract with Bike New Haven to launch the long-awaited program. It allows for short-term bike rentals of hundreds of bicycles. The program aims to have about 30 stations and 300 bikes on line by the end summer and reach its maximum 40 stations by the end of the year.

The bike share program is funded by a mix of membership fees, program-wide advertisements, and station-specific sponsorships. It relies on no taxpayer 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.

Those points were reiterated at Monday night’s management team by Bike New Haven Program Manager Carolyn Lusch, who was in attendance, along with Traffic, Parking & Transportation Director Doug Hausladen.

Lusch, who took notes throughout the gathering, reported that the program is going great guns, with over 4,000 rides by about 1,000 individual riders having been taken since the launch in February.

As to the advertising panels, ​“they are what mostly funds the system,” she reminded her interlocutors, and that includes discounts for seniors, students,and others. Bike New Haven contracts with Capital Outdoor company to attract advertisers for the panel, she said.

As to the alcohol advertising, ​“that’s allowed in the contract. There are limits to the number of panels with alcohol advertising due to proximity to schools and churches,” she added.

Community management team Co-Chair Camille Ansley of Cedar Hill asked how much the advertising costs. The answer: $1,500 for four weeks for a single side of a two-sided panel.

A gasp circulated through the room. How could local mom-and-pop stores come up with that kind of money?

“What about one or two small ones coming together for a week” of advertising? Ansley said.

“We’re absolutely open to working with small businesses,” Lusch said.

Nicoll Street resident Ann Tramontana-Veno said she had some specific advertiser ideas to suggest to Lusch as alternatives to beer and burgers: What about Ikea? Or even the mActivity gym, in which the group was sitting?

Area resident Paul Wessel said that while he finds the panels offensive, ​“the city made a deal, and advertising is the price to get a free bike share program in stressed fiscal times. We’re whining after the fact. And,” he added, ​“as a community I’m concerned we don’t voice objection to the McDonalds [advertising panel] in front of the Columbus School [in Fair Haven]. Let’s be careful not to protect our own neighborhood [alone].”

“Good point,” responded Hausladen, ​“but Lucille [Bruce] and others have made it clear it’s citywide.”

Hausladen also revealed that the city owns three of the advertising panels. Already the Board of Ed has posted on them, at locations in front of schools, with information about summer programs including summer meals.

The discussion was the latest in a series of conversations across the city about where New Haven’s new bike stations are located and, more controversially, the ads placed on them to pay the cost without charging taxpayers.

Last week local organizers Lucille Bruce and Andrea Konetchy had attended an Historic District Commission meeting to argue against locating a bike share stanchion on Orange Street at Linden: in front of the historic Hall Benedict Drug Store building. The Historic Commission provided little relief as questions of location in the public way and advertising location are not in the their purview and had already been approved in publicly noticed sessions before other city regulators.

Bruce noticed that the next placement of a stanchion comes before the City Plan Commission July 18. She appealed for a public hearing, which will take place that evening at 7 p.m.. Heretofore each placement was discussed in a site plan review proceeding, which permits no public participation.

“The proposal is to place an advertising panel at the edge of this small, beautifully restored city park. The panel would be located at the east side of the park, facing the 1905 Civil War memorial and the small pile of rocks commemorating soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she wrote in an email to supporters whom she urged to attend the July 18 meeting.

“I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this is a suitable location for a large commercial advertising sign.”