City Lands $11M For Chapel Change-Up

Coordinated traffic signals, raised intersections, safer pedestrian crossings and two directions of car traffic will be coming to a 1.6‑mile stretch of Chapel Street by 2029 — or, maybe, sooner — thanks to an $11 million federal grant newly received by the city.

Mayor Justin Elicker and city transit director Sandeep Aysola joined U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and a handful of alders and Dwight neighborhood leaders to celebrate that grant on Friday afternoon at the corner of Sherman Avenue and Chapel Street.

That $11 million grant comes to New Haven as part of $1 billion announced for nationwide road safety projects on Friday, as funded by the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

Aysola thanked his staff time and time again — especially city Project Engineer Carl Giordano, who joined the municipal transportation department in April — for helping fill out and submit the grant application that led to what Aysola described as the largest federal transportation award to come to New Haven in a long time.

The $11 million will be used for a variety of traffic safety improvements to Chapel Street between Ella T. Grasso Boulevard and State Street. Some of those improvements will include, among other planned changes:

• New and upgraded traffic signals that will be coordinated with one another, to allow for a smoother and less head-bangingly-frustrating flow of vehicle traffic along the corridor;

• New sidewalks, sidewalk extensions at intersections, and ADA-accessible curb cuts;

• High-visibility crosswalks, new pedestrian cross signals, and some raised intersections;

• New bike lanes; and

• A conversion of the one-way stretch of Chapel between College Street and Ella T. Grasso Boulevard to two-way.

“The need is very, very clear” for safety improvements to this city-owned corridor, Elicker said, noting that, over the past five years on this 1.6‑mile stretch of Chapel, there have been nearly 900 crashes, 18 serious traffic-related injuries, and three traffic-related fatalities — the latter of which have all occurred at Sherman and Chapel.

“The goal is to radically change the corridor to make it safe for everyone.”

Blumenthal put these proposed changes in the context of the shamefully unacceptable lack of safety that too many roads across Connecticut, and the nation, present to people outside of cars.

“We have designed our roads for cars, not walkers or bicyclists,” he said. He also described this stretch of Chapel as a ​“murderous alley for pedestrians” and said, ​“If there were a pedestrian murder map in New Haven, these 1.6 miles would be on it.”

Now that the city has been awarded this $11 million grant, when will the actual road safety improvements be built?

Aysola said that the city plans to do a year and a half worth of design work starting next year, after the city officially receives the federal funds. The city expects to begin construction in 2027. And the money has to be spent within five years, so by 2029.

Elicker and Blumenthal jumped in at the end of the press conference to push back on the end date of that timeline.

“2029 is not an acceptable timeline,” Elicker said. He promised to be ​“breathing down people’s necks” to make sure these improvements are built out sooner.