Current one-way Church Street and potential two-way Church Street with bike lanes.
Frustrated drivers and cyclists struggling to navigate downtown routes, take heart: the city has a new plan to switch some one-way streets into two-ways.
The project, which has been in the works since 2013, would make downtown safer and more navigable for people using any form of transit — and might increase the number of people who visit or move to the city.
For the past year and a half, local transit leaders, community members and city officials used past plans and studies of the area to collaborate on a design for a new downtown grid.
New Haven has many one-way streets downtown, because planners prioritized shuttling cars quickly through and out of the city, said city transit chief Doug Hausladen.
“Previously traffic engineers were pretty conscientious about one variable and that was, ‘How many cars can I move through a particular traffic-control device at a peak hour condition?’” Hausladen said. “Now we’re getting into a place where we’re counting pedestrians, counting cyclists and worrying more about how transit operations flow with our street grid.”
The one-way system is also more “rigid,” making it harder for people to get out of gridlock or avoid accidents, Hausladen said. “Two-way streets are better for retail environment,” so people can stop and patronize stores, instead of zooming by, he said. Many of the people involved in the study “had an eye toward the visitor. They also had an eye toward the resident.”
Unlike Manhattan, New Haven has many parallel one-way streets that go in the same direction, instead of alternating directions. Drivers, especially those new to the city, have to keep looping around a few blocks to reach their destinations — perhaps making them less likely to spend time in New Haven.
To get from the Green to the Chapel West neighborhood, one project team followed GPS directions that sent it around via Grove Street, up Tower Parkway, across on Dwight Street, and back down on Edgewood — instead of across on Church and directly up Chapel Street.
Hausladen explained the details of the group’s resulting study during the latest episode of WNHH Community Radio’s “In Transit,” linked at the bottom of the page. Click here to read the full study.
The report divides downtown streets into those that can be converted relatively easily in the next few years, and those that will take more planning and funding. It also makes recommendations for how to concurrently simplify bus routes, expand the bike network and improve pedestrian safety.
Hausladen estimated the full cost of the project at “perhaps in the $25 million range,” pending an upcoming engineering study and identification of funding sources. He said the city will carry it out in phases.
Paul Bass Photo
A lot of the one-way streets work in pairs, Hausladen (pictured) said, and should be converted together. Any changes would have a ripple effect on other streets. York Street and Park Street is an example of a one-way pair that will be easier to convert.
A few of the short-term street conversions are tied to a project to upgrade 15 downtown traffic signals. The signals on Church Street between Elm and Chapel Streets are designed for two-way traffic, but the money has not been found for the rest of Church.
Certain streets — including Edgewood Avenue, High Street, Audubon Street and parts of Chapel, Crown and Orange Streets — were found too narrow or otherwise physically incompatible for conversion into two-way streets. Wall and Center Streets are also too narrow, but could see the direction of their one-way switch, to improve network circulation.
Elm Street will not be converted for another five or 10 years because it is currently a major connection to Interstates 91 and 95 from downtown, with few other alternatives. It can be converted once Grove Street is converted to two-way, as a nearby eastbound route. In the meantime, Hausladen said, turning connecting streets into two-ways will help reduce traffic jams on Elm.
“If you implement this study in a way that actually helps turning vehicles get out of the travel lanes, can you actually get higher throughput and help traffic run smoothly?” he said.
The most complex project would smooth out the confusing intersection between Broadway, Tower Parkway, Dixwell Avenue, Goffe Street, and Whalley Avenue — which is often difficult for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists to use (sometimes resulting in collisions like the one detailed in this article). The plan calls for realigning Goffe Street to form a more separated intersection, allowing two-way flow between the intersections, and converting Tower Parkway and Howe Street to two-ways.
Simplifying New Haven’s grid could ultimately allow for simpler and more direct bus routes. Planners also considered making only bus traffic run two-way on certain streets, such as Church and Temple Streets.
The plan also includes contraflow cycletracks — made legal by the SB 502 “bike bill” passed this spring —allowing cyclists to have two-way lanes on one-way streets. Not all road will have bike lanes — some still have sharrows to indicate drivers and cyclists should share the lane. Hausladen said that was due to “road width.” Bike lanes just cannot fit on both sides of every two-way street.
Pedestrians will feel safer traveling with the “physical construction of the new signals,” more of which will have “signal heads” showing them when to walk, Hausladen said.
“Everything is changing very quickly in the field of transportation right now,” Hausladen said. “This document clearly outlines a vision to go after. It’s not a perfect vision.”
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full WNHH interview with Hausladen.