The Union LeaderCheck the map! Are we in Vermont already?
By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
Sunday News Staff
Telephone Credit Union
Jeannie Johnson actually groaned aloud when she heard they had to cut down New Hampshire trees for two Vermont billboards that are quickly becoming infamous.
The story just keeps getting worse.
Johnson is the coordinator of the governor’s highway safety program in Vermont. That agency paid thousands of dollars to put up two billboards in the middle of New Hampshire that have been turning heads and sparking conversations.
Trees were cleared to provide a view of a new billboard on I-293 promoting seatbelt use in Vermont. (BOB LAPREE/UNION LEADER)
“Buckle up in Vermont. It’s the law,” read the large billboards on Interstate 293 near the Manchester-Hooksett line, and on Route 9/202 as you enter Hillsborough.
Huh?
Is that supposed to be a swipe at New Hampshire, where seat belt laws only apply up to age 18? Was it just a mistake?
Nope, it was your federal tax dollars at work.
Johnson told the New Hampshire Sunday News that Vermont got a $24,000 federal grant to put up billboards reminding drivers of the seatbelt law.
Here’s what’s funny: Vermont bans billboards.
So the grant was for Vermont to rent billboards in New Hampshire and Massachusetts instead. Johnson explained past seatbelt surveys have found the areas of Vermont with the lowest rates of seatbelt use are along those borders.
Something different
The feds had made it clear they weren’t happy with Vermont’s seatbelt usage rates. The only way the state was going to get more highway safety money this year was if they tried something different.
Billboards were different.
The feds liked Vermont’s idea and gave them the grant in March. But when Johnson set out to find billboards close to the borders, they had all already been rented long ago.
“We assumed they were going to be right on the border, but it turned out there were no right-on-the-border locations that we could get.”
“We had a lot of money thrown at us and a very short time to get it done.”
Dumb or brilliant?
There were two billboards available in New Hampshire: On the Manchester beltway and on what serves as the local road into Hillsborough, now that the Route 9/202 bypass is open.
There were seven signs available in Massachusetts — and they’re not on the Vermont border either. Six are in Pittsfield in the Berkshires and one is on Interstate 91 near Springfield.
Johnson said she knew it wasn’t ideal. “We said this isn’t perfect, but maybe we can put our toe in the water and see whether this is the dumbest idea we ever came up with, or maybe it’s brilliant.”
“Here’s the deal: We either don’t do it at all and send the money back or give it a shot,” she said. “The fact of the matter is it’s federal money and if it only helps New Hampshire and not Vermont, that doesn’t meet my goals, but it’s good for the country.”
Still, she said, “If we’d known we were going to be in Manchester, we might have worded it differently.”
Did Johnson consider giving the money back? “Briefly,” she admitted. “But if nothing else, I realize I may be fried over this, but if I get fried in the flurry of conversation about people in Vermont trying to get you buckled up, I’m willing to go down.”
“I hate the idea of using my money to help New Hampshire when I need help so badly, but I don’t see how anything bad can come out of it,” she said.
That was before she heard about the trees.
Signs, trees come down
The company that owns the I-293 billboard recently hired a contractor to cut a wide swath of pine trees, to allow sight lines for the sign from the highway.
Bill Boynton, spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, said the tree-cutting was part of an agreement signed in February between the state DOT and Viacom Outdoors. The company owns more than 250 billboards in the state, according to a Viacom representative.
Boynton said the pilot project let Viacom Outdoors do “vegetation management” around its billboards in eight locations, in Bedford, Rochester, Dover, Merrimack and Hooksett. In exchange, the company will take down five of its older signs, in Concord, Belmont, Keene and Goffstown.
“We’re allowing the private sector to have a certain amount of limited access and also enable us to get some of the less desirable billboards down, and they won’t be replaced,” Boynton said.
“And also part of the mix is some public service messages.”
Raising eyebrows and ...
Before the latest sign, the Hooksett billboard bore a message from the state of New Hampshire, reminding drivers of the penalties for buying alcohol for underage individuals.
But urging Vermonters to buckle up?
“We were pretty surprised by the nature of the message,” Boynton admitted. “We don’t have any problem with Vermont encouraging seatbelt use by spending money. We did find it somewhat eyebrow-raising that they did it in the heart of New Hampshire.”
Johnson sounded appalled when she heard about the trees. “I can assure you we asked nobody to cut down any trees,” she said.
“I can see outrage coming from that, and who could blame them?”
“Maybe they were just trying to improve visibility on the roadway,” she suggested hopefully.
A NH message
Peter Thomson, coordinator of New Hampshire’s highway safety agency, said any buckle-up message can’t hurt, especially as the state launches its own seatbelt campaign this week. But he said, “I wouldn’t spend the money to put a billboard in the middle of Massachusetts or in the middle of Vermont for a New Hampshire activity.”
For instance, he said, the state plans to put up message boards in time for Motorcycle Week in June, warning drivers and bikers alike to use caution. But he said, “That’s going to be on the border on the New Hampshire side.”
Reactions to the Vermont billboards last week ranged from jokes to minor outrage.
“We weren’t sure whether this was some sort of payback for the whole Killington thing,” Boynton said, referring to that town’s efforts to secede from Vermont and join the Granite State.
Jim Coffey is the business administrator for the town of Hillsborough. He wasn’t impressed with the new sign.
“Your tax dollars at work,” he said with disgust.
“I could see putting it in New Hampshire just before you cross the Connecticut River. But putting it in a commercial zone in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, is nuts.”
Then he had an idea: “Why don’t we put a New Hampshire liquor store in Vermont?”
Mary Ann Wells, who works in the state Bureau of Traffic office that regulates billboards, said her office got a good laugh when they heard about what Vermont was planning to do.
“It just absolutely boggles my mind that they did this,” she said. “It makes absolutely no sense.”
And she wonders if the signs will confuse out-of-state visitors: “You’re going to say, ‘Hon, grab the map. Where the heck are we?’”
Then there was this joke making its way around a certain state office last week: “It definitely can’t be a Vermont country road, because it has new pavement, new paint and four-foot shoulders.”
