Paul Bass Photo
Hausladen with prototype.
Doug Hausladen is toting a tri-colored meter around town to see if neighbors agree it’ll help them avoid parking tickets.
Hausladen, the city’s transit chief, had his staff slap some paint on a normal meter to make the prototype. It now has a yellow body and a green top. Hausladen’s idea is to put them at seven loading zones where people can’t park during the day, but can resume legally parking in the late afternoon or evening.
“One of the biggest complaints I get” is from people not realizing they couldn’t feed a meter and park legally in those zones, Hausladen said. The yellow cap would serve as an extra warning beyond the existing signs.
The prototype also has a green cap above the normal grey top. Hausladen proposes the shaded cap for meters in shorter-term zones. That would cover 17 30-minute-zone spots and 45 15-minute meters, he estimated. He said his crew could paint those tops in-house. He’d look to powder-coat the yellow ones.
But first Hausladen is bringing the prototype to neighborhood management team meetings to get feedback. Assuming color-conscious parkers don’t rise up in revolt, you might start seeing the bright yellow meters and the green-hooded numbers around town beginning in January, he said. Weigh in by casting a “True Vote” on this page and/or commenting below.
BikeShare’s Coming!
Hausladen is also looking for public input for where to locate stations around town for a new bike share program. New Haven is following cities like New York and Washington, D.C. in bringing the service to town, which allows people to buy a pass to pick up a bike in one location and drop it off at another for one-way trips — for instance, when commuting to work.
The city has chosen a winner in a three-bidder competition to operate the service in town: a team from the E3 Think and P3GM firms.
Hausladen said the outfit operates the bike share in Hoboken, N.J. The city was impressed by the bidder’s track record in working with the housing authority there to include poorer neighborhoods in the system.
“When they presented, they spoke a lot about Fair Haven, Newhallville and the Hill,” not just downtown, East Rock, and Westville, Hausladen said.
The city is negotiating the terms of the contract with the winning bidder. It will not involve the city paying any money to the bidder, he said.
Meanwhile, the city’s inviting people to recommend where they’d like to locate stations. You can do that by clicking here and posting on SeeClickFix. Public outreach meetings are also scheduled to start on Dec. 31. Find out more about the campaign here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for information.