Red Light Flashes On Builder Walking Tour

One hundred twenty-nine apartments are coming. Will the neighborhood be safe from all the extra traffic coming along with them?

That question hung over an hour-long outdoor community meeting Thursday in the future shadow of the mixed-use development that Ocean Management is building at the site of the former 500 Blake Street Cafe.

The meeting included a walking tour of streets surrounding Ocean’s planned new 129-unit apartment complex on Blake Street. It revealed a classic conundrum faced by a city mid-building boom: How to add density while still keeping current neighbors, new residents, and all other users of the road safe from increased traffic.

Roughly 25 Westville neighbors, alders, and city economic development and transportation officials joined Saint Project Management’s Melissa Saint, Axela Construction project manager Joe Hemingway, and engineer David Sacco for the walk around Tour Avenue, Valley Street Extension, West Rock Avenue, and Blake Street.

They visited sites where the developer plans to install various traffic safety improvements — including three new speed humps along Tour, Valley St. Ext., and West Rock, and an upgraded, signalized four-way intersection at Blake and Valley — that are designed to keep pedestrians and cyclists safe after an influx of new residents and their cars.

The development is being built on at the site of the demolished former Westville restaurant and atop an expanse of vacant parking lots bounded by Tour Avenue, Whalley Avenue, Blake Street, and the West River. It will include 129 new apartments, 99 on-site parking spaces, 50 indoor bicycle spaces, and 7,300 square feet of new ground-floor commercial spaces.

As part of the City Plan Commission’s site plan approval for the project last May, the local land use board required the developer to consult with local residents on traffic and pedestrian safety improvements.

Thus Thursday’s walking tour.

“All of the neighbors support development and increased density,” said neighbor Thea Buxbaum (pictured) said at the start of the tour.

Holding a double-sided, 17-point list of recommendations for the developer, Buxbaum said that she and fellow Westville residents just want to make sure that what ultimately gets built is safe and an amenity for those who already live in the neighborhood.

Westville Alders Richard Furlow (pictured at right) and Adam Marchand agreed. The purpose of requiring this neighborhood consultation was to ​“make sure that the people using this street can be as safe as possible,” said Marchand, who also sits on the City Plan Commission.

“We’re hoping for a very good project here that can be amicable for everyone,” added Furlow, who represents the ward that includes the 500 Blake St. development. And, he added with a smile while leaning towards Saint, he’s confident that the developer will happily agree to every traffic safety suggestion put forth by the community.

“We do understand that you live here,” replied Saint (pictured at right). ​“That this is your street and your neighborhood. We do listen, and we do care” about the safety of the area. ​“We’re going to do the best we can. Our goal here in Westville is to build a project that is open to the community. … And we’re very open to hearing any other suggestions.”

Three Speed Humps On Tour, Valley St. Ext., West Rock

The walking tour began on Tour Avenue — a one-block, one-way road that abuts where the back side of future Blake Street development.

Saint said that, after taking into consideration a variety of potential traffic safety upgrades, the developer decided on installing three speed humps as the most ​“unobtrusive” way to slow down traffic behind the development.

While the complex’s primary entrance and exit will be at Blake Street and Valley Street, she said, a back entrance and exit will be located at Tour and Valley St. Extension. Thus the planned construction of three new speed humps to slow down traffic behind the development.

Sacco led the group halfway down Tour Avenue towards Whalley to the site of the first future traffic hump.

Per city standards and specifications, he said, this hump will stretch 12 feet across the center of the roadway, leaving free a few feet on either side to allow for drainage near the curbs.

“As long as we can park on it, this is totally fine,” Tour Avenue resident Adam LoPiano said. He said that his house does not have a parking lot, so residents park on the street. Sacco, Saint, and city traffic engineer Bruce Fisher assured LoPiano that, indeed, cars can park on a speed hump.

The group had to pause and jump up on the sidewalks to avoid a large truck pulling onto Tour Avenue to circle back over to Whalley.

“The temporary opening here has become very dangerous,” cautioned neighbor Muffy Pendergast. Saint promised to get a one-way sign installed at that temporary curb cut during construction to make it clear which direction cars can come from and go to.

Back at the corner of Tour and Valley St. Extension, Saint and Sacco pointed out where the back entrance and exit to the complex will be.

“This is a two-way, in and out,” Saint said. ​“It’s a second entrance that will go underneath the parking.”

“This is going to be a driveway cut,” Sacco said. The sidewalk will come down Tour and connect over to the elevated riverwalk along the West River. ​“It will not be this kind of at-grade roadway” after construction is complete.

Saint added that the area by the riverwalk near Tour and Valley St. Etension will have trees and benches alongside an access point to the elevated walkway and a planned new bike lane.

“We’re not trying to bastardize the corner,” she said. ​“We’re trying to beautify it.”

And while the developer did broach the idea of installing a raised table where Tour and Valley St. Extension meet, Sacco said, the city ultimately advised the developer not to, as a corner is already a traffic calming measure in of itself.

The more effective approach, he said, is the one the developer is pursuing: installing speed humps mid-block on the back side of the development to slow down cars as they approach the Tour-Valley Extension corner and the Valley Extension-West Rock corner.

The next stop — and the site of the second planned speed hump — was half-way down Valley Street Extension between Tour and West Rock.

“This will be here to make things slow and steady,” Saint said.

And the third and final speed hump is planned for half-way down West Rock between Valley St. Extension and Whalley.

City Engineer Giovanni Zinn explained that each speed hump will be roughly 3.5 inches tall at the midpoint.

“They’re very effective” at slowing down traffic, he said. And they’re the number one request his department receives from residents citywide who want to slow down cars on their blocks.

Intersection Upgrades

The group ended the tour by walking across the construction site itself, parallel to the West River riverwalk and over to the Blake Street side of the project.

Sacco said that the development will include outdoor seating and a patio area in between the end of the building and the elevated riverwalk.

The existing chainlink fence will be replaced with a picket fence.

And, by the primary entrance and exit to the complex at Blake Street and Valley Street, Sacco said, the developer will be funding a host of improvements to an intersection that residents have long criticized as one of the more dangerous in the area.

He said the intersection will be a ​“full, four-way light,” which will include new button-activated, signalized crosswalks across Blake Street and across Valley Street.

What about a new crosswalk across Blake Street by the riverwalk? asked Pendergast. Won’t that be an important area to slow down traffic, particularly considering all of the people who will be walking and biking along the improved and more accessible riverwalk?

Saint said the developer considered adding a crosswalk there. But, with the new four-way light at Valley and Blake nearby, ​“it was going to block up traffic.”

Isn’t that exactly what the developer and the city should be striving for? Pendergast asked. Slower traffic to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and other users of the road?

While Thursday’s walking tour was focused on the developer’s existing traffic safety plans for the site, said city transit chief Doug Hausladen (pictured), the city is open to taking in more suggestions from neighbors as to what further upgrades can be made to make the site safer.

He said he made a note to himself even before Pendergast spoke up about considering with city staff the prospect of putting in a new crossing of Blake Street by the riverwalk.

“It’s good to be having these conversations in real time” he said. ​“What we’re hearing is that the community wants to take its commitment” to traffic calming in the area ​“to the next step up.”

Learn/Act

• Watch for Me CT
• City of New Haven Complete Streets Design Manual
• Safe Street Coalition of New Haven
• New Haven Safe Streets
• The Tom Ficklin Show: New Haven Safe Streets and Active Transit Planning for the Community.
• The Key to Safe Streets: Five Cities Humanizing Street Design
• Green Cities: Good Health