Road Clears For Cycletrack

Team Hausladen-Zinn might have designed their way into full-on community support for a two-way protected-bike-lane ​“cycletrack” linking the west side to downtown.

After two meetings that drew crowds of people to Edgewood School and then Augusta Troup School, a third roadshow to pitch the revised plan attracted just 15 people Wednesday night.

And aside from a few questions about who is paying for what and snow plowing and suggestions for tweaks to the design, the attendees were in support of the bicycle and pedestrian improvements planned to connect Westville with downtown. When that day will come remains up in the air, since the city doesn’t yet have the state money $1.2 million approved for the project in hand.

City transit chief Doug Hausladen and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn — who have put together plan and revised it after conducting these road-show meetings with neighbors — said because the program under which the city was chosen to do this project is completely new, the state has to figure out exactly how to administer it.

When the city does get the state bond money, it plans to create a network of two-way protected bike lanes — aka ​“cycletracks,” largely buffered from car traffic with delineators (or ​“rubber duckies”). The cycletracks will ultimately link both Southern Connecticut State University and Westville, Edgewood and Dwight to the center of town in what is known as the Downtown West Commuting Corridor. The plan reflects New Haven’s embrace of cycling and ​“calmer” lower-speed streets. (The plan involves more than just the Edgewood Avenue lanes.)

Zinn and Hausladen returned to Edgewood School for the third meeting Wednesday, a location where the plan originally sparked some vocal opposition to a loss of street parking near the school and the Deja Brew coffee shop.

The latest version of the plan for the cycletrack calls for bumping the curb specifically in the two blocks on Edgewood School near Deja Brew five to six feet into the street. That way the city could move the cycletrack onto the curb bump-out for those two blocks, amid the tree belt, rather than have it in the street. That would leave just enough room left in the street to preserve parking on both sides (To protect the tree belt, the city would pour porous concrete to collect more water for the roots, Zinn said.)

Zinn pointed out that though people have been focused on the bike lane aspect of the project, much of the project involves pedestrian improvements that redesign intersections, crosswalks and signaling to make things safer for people who are actually on foot.

Glenn Nelson has lived in his home on Edgewood Avenue for 20 years.. He said he supports the plan but suggested that it extend the off-road part of the cycletrack up to near where he lives near Marvel and Edgewood to preserve parking there as well. He said many of the homes on that part of the street are multi-familys and most people have two cars per unit.

Zinn said the city likely wouldn’t be able to do that because the road narrows significantly from about 42 feet to 38 feet there, and the city would have to ​“cut down every single tree.” But he agreed to take another look at it.

Another suggestion from Nelson could work, according to Hausladen. Nelson suggested reclaiming some of the space used to allow buses on Edgewood to pull over and not block traffic for parking. Hausladen said that might work by creating a ​“bus bulb” to allows the bus stop to be right at the curb. That means that traffic behind the bus would have to stop until the bus is finished loading and unloading passengers.

Hausladen said the reality is that the city is making a choice to value walking, biking and public transportation over parking so that it is in better position for development, and to encourage public health and to help make it more feasible to avoid owning a car in a city where 30 percent of people don’t have one.

Neighbors Tim Holahan and Jay Rickey both gave kudos to Zinn and Hausladen for letting the community drive the process and taking to heart all of the input. They both said they’re looking forward to the traffic calming that will happen once the project is complete.

Mark Oppenheimer also voiced his support for the plan, but suggested that Zinn and Hausladen revisit the first version of their plan because after attending the meetings he’s convinced that the loss of maybe 20 to 30 parking spaces in the neighborhood would not be as bad as people think.

“We have to be a city where it is OK to park two blocks from where you live,” he said. ​“That’s every other city.”

“But we should also be a city where transit is a good option,” Hausladen added. ​“And we’re not that yet, but we will be.”

Westville Alder Adam Marchand said there details remained to be worked out, particularly at the intersection of Edgewood Way and Forest Road,along with some design challenges near the western edge of the ​“mall” (the grassy median on Edgewood along the park). But after attending all three meetings, Marchand said he supports moving forward and believes both Westville and Dwight neighbors support that position too.

“I think it’s a good thing for the neighborhood and the city,” he said. ​“There are going to be a lot of details that we haven’t even touched on yet that we’re going to have to look at carefully. I want to see every single intersection. I’m worried about the western edge of the mall; the current design I think is a problem and needs to be fixed. There will have to be additional behavior changes that we have to talk about .. .and a high-profile communications outreach strategy like the [“Street Smarts”] campaign. We need police around giving out tickets, especially in the early days. We need to encourage our fellow cyclists to use the bike lanes. There is a lot more engineer work, design work and policy work that needs to happen.

“But what I have heard at all three meetings, and I’ve been to all three, is that we’re moving ahead.”