It’s Neighbors Vs. Experts On Speeders

A simple-sounding question before New Haven’s Traffic Commission is a matter of life and death for neighbors looking to slow down speeders: Should there be an all-way stop at Hobart and Elm Streets?

The neighbors brought that request to Tuesday night’s Traffic Commission meeting at 1 Union Ave.

First, city Traffic Operations Engineer Bruce Fischer presented his recommendation: Do not approve the request.

The intersection has too little traffic and too few accidents — one police-reported accident in two and half years to meet the criterion to turn a two-way intersection into an all-way stop there, Fischer reported.

Sixty-seven petition signers disagreed. One of them, Cora Upshaw, who lives on Hubinger near Elm, stood up before the commissioners and spoke passionately about many unreported near misses, and how her daughter’s car was totaled nearby.

The commissioners (they also double as the Police Commission) had to keep in mind what also never got into official reports: the little kids playing ball and biking and the elderly Jews walking to their synagogues on Saturday, all in danger of speeding cars on Elm Street. That’s because, neighbors explained, Elm has only one stop sign, at Brownell, for the full run between Ella Grasso Boulevard and West Park, the result being that cars speed through often at 40 or more miles an hour.

Commissioner Stephen Garcia asked Fischer if he didn’t have a warm place in his traffic-calming heart for the residents along Elm Street.

“I feel strongly it’s the wrong thing to do,” said Fischer.

“We’re bound” by the rules and the scientific findings, added Michael Pinto, the Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking’s deputy director.

“Yes, but we can overrule,” Garcia replied.

In the ensuing back and forth it became clear that Upshaw, Anderson, and the other neighbors — who beginning in June last year had formed themselves into the Edgewood Neighborhood Community Group to advocate for more traffic safety — were not necessarily asking for stop signs.

Stop signs are not in themselves a traffic calming measure, Fischer reminded the commissioners and the neighbors.

“Have you asked for speed bumps?” Fischer said.

Other speakers called attention to the need for an overall plan to address speed and the inconsistency of the stop sign configurations in the area all along Elm Street.

“Let’s find a compromise so we don’t have this meeting when someone has lost their life,” said Upshaw.

“It’s just unsafe without an intervention. It doesn’t show in the data,” said Anderson.

“We get it,” said Commissioner Chair Anthony Dawson.

In the end, the request for the all-way stop at the Hobart and Elm intersection was tabled until the next meeting.

Dawson asked Fischer to be able to present by then accident, volume, and other studies on the other intersection in question, at Pendleton and Hubinger, so that the issue can be addressed more comprehensively, not piecemeal.

Assistant Police Chief Tony Reyes said that during the next month he’ll try to give that area ​“an increased presence.” He asked where the speeding situation was most acute.

“Mornings and evenings,” said Upshaw.

Traffic & Parking Roundup

Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the commissioners unanimously approved a mid-block crosswalk on Prospect Street between Trumbull Street and Sachem Street.

That’s where Yale University’s new colleges are moving steadily toward completion. The resulting pedestrian traffic there is expected to swell.

The crosswalk — which will be paid for by Yale and Dimeo Construction, which are building the new colleges — will be located mid-block, 600 feet from the corners. It will traverse Prospect from two sides of a bump-out, which will have narrowed the width of Prospect at that point from 40 to 20 feet, explained Fischer.

It will also be outfitted with a rectangular rapid flash beacon (RRFB), which a pedestrian can activate before he or she crosses, similar to the one recently installed on Olive Street at Greene in Wooster Square after a traffic fatality there.

Also on the table for a vote was a measure to relieve neighbors concerned in Morris Cove that Nathan Hale School teachers are regularly taking up too many spots on Pope Street.

The commissioners voted, at the request of Ward 18 Alder Sal DeCola, to establish a two-hour parking regulation 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday on the north side of Pope Street, which is adjacent to the school, from Townsend Avenue to No. 78 Pope.

While teachers and other school staff have ample room to park in the school’s lot on the south side, and the administration has asked staff not to park on Pope, the situation has not resolved. Thus the vote, which was unanimous.