CDM SMith
Before and after: Plan for Winthrop-Edgewood intersection.
City traffic commissioners gave the green light Tuesday night for the proposed west side two-way bike track along Edgewood Avenue, clearing the way for the $1.2 million largely state-funded dedicated cycletrack to become, after years of planning and community meetings, a reality.
It was the last vote needed for the two-mile long protected cycletrack from Forest Road to Park Street, which will be the largest in the state.
The plan, which had received approval from the City Plan Commission in June, was held up last month by the commissioners when Traffic and Parking Director Doug Hausladen had been unable to provide official letters of support from the alders of the impacted areas.
Allan Appel Photo
The plan calls for a “pedestrian phase” to be added to the signals on Howe, Norton, the Boulevard, and Dwight Street (pictured).
With official endorsements from West Side Alders Evette Hamilton, Adam Marchand, and Dwight’s Frank Douglass in hand at the Tuesday night regular meeting of the traffic commissioners, Hausladen’s plan received a unanimous thumbs up.
The plan requires the commissioners approval specifically because the cycletrack includes improvements to pedestrian crossings and intersections, new signals specifically for bike traffic, and fixing a problem intersection at Winthrop and Edgewood avenues.
The commissioners specifically, by their vote, approved the following traffic changes as part of the establishment of the two-way cycletrack:
• Establish a new traffic signal at Edgewood and Winthrop.
• Establish a new stop control with flashing beacon of bicycle traffic at the bicycle crossing of westbound vehicular traffic at the west end of the Edgewood Avenue Park mall 100 feet east of the West River.
• Establish new pedestrian phases added to signals at Howe, Dwight, Norton, and E.T. Grasso boulevard on Edgewood Avenue.
• Establish new bicycle phases added to all ten existing signals on Edgewood.
• Establish a new bike lane on Edgewood from Forest Road to Park Street.
• Establish a new counter flow bike lane added to Edgewood Avenue from Forest road to Park Street.
• Establish No Parking on the north side of Edgewood from 100 feet east of the West River to Yale Avenue.
• Establish No Parking on the north side of Edgewood avenue from Yale Avenue to Forest Road.
Amistad School, where Edgewood is particularly narrow.
The city expects to start paving the cycletrack this fall, doing signal work over the winter, and striping and installing delineators in the spring, according to Hausladen, with a hope-for opening in the summer.
In contrast to last month’s vigorous discussion of a wide range of potential problem areas, commissioners on Tuesday night Tuesday’s meeting simply asked to confirm the formal buy-in of the alders. They also asked how Hausladen’s plan addressesa key area of concern they had expressed last month: the effect of the cycle rack-caused narrowing of the avenue around the schools along Edgewood, particularly, around the Amistad School at Edgewood and Day.
Commissioner Evelise Ribeiro asked again about school bus movement in the new narrow cycle-track environment on the avenue.
Hausladen reported that he had met with officials and leadership at three of the schools impacted — Edgewood, Troup, and Amistad — and “everyone is on board to work on a communications strategy.”
He said Troup and Edgewood will see “no impact” because most, if not all, of their transportation business takes place behind the schools off the avenue.
The alders have no issues? Amistad?” asked Commissioner Greg Smith, who last month had expressed some skepticism of the plan in the area of the Amistad School.
Hausladen, right, with Commissioner Donald Walker.
Hausladen told him that on Tuesday morning he, along with citywide school bus transportation coordinator Teddi Barra, had met with officials at Amistad. While they will be looking to “implementing some tweaks” to their transportation plan, “they’re concerned less with buses, and more with parent pick-up.”
The voice vote in favor of the plan was unanimous. (Click here to read about the previous debate and approval at the City Plan Commission.)
After the meeting, Hausladen wrote in an email, “Tonight’s Traffic Authority [vote] was the last local approval needed to officially bless the Edgewood Avenue project. The construction documents for the traffic signals are awaiting state approval. However, this is expected after answering a few more comments from the state of Connecticut.”