Simon Bazelon Photo
Justin Elicker campaigning Thursday night at Devil’s Gear. Shop owner Matthew Feiner at left.
Justin Elicker popped into a downtown cycle shop Thursday night to vow to become a mayor who rides his bike to work — and makes it easier for other people to as well.
Elicker, who’s challenging incumbent Mayor Toni Harp in a Sept. 10 Democratic primary, stopped by Devil’s Gear Bike Shop on Orange Street at 7 p.m. to chat with other cycling enthusiasts about what the city can do to improve the experience of biking in New Haven. He has spoken often on the trail, as he did Thursday night, about how he generally uses his bicycle to get around town.
Over beer and a sandwich platter, he took questions on steps he would take to promote cycling from seven New Haveners critical of cars and jaded by years of perceived mistreatment at the hands of motorists.
Elicker advocated “education, enforcement, and infrastructure” as the three main tenets of a pro-biker agenda. Downtown New Haven is “like the Wild West,” Elicker said, arguing that running red lights, speeding, and other dangerous driving practices have been on the rise.
On the infrastructure side, Elicker declared, we need to be “more visionary.”
“Closing off some streets downtown to cars is an incredible idea,” he said, naming Crown Street as one road with potential. Laying out possible ways to make downtown more like “an outdoor mall,” he advocated more speed humps, bike racks, space for cyclists, and for the city to look into “more creative traffic-calming infrastructure.” (Click here to read a previous story about the street-closing idea.)
He also advocated teaching about the rights of cyclists and safe driving practices in schools as well as drivers ed: “the city needs to educate drivers.” Elicker also said that as Mayor, he would fight to change how the proceeds of traffic tickets are divided between the City and the state, to make investing in traffic law enforcement more worth it for the City. “We need more officers,” he said, to ensure that drivers are following the law, but “we also need those officers to model good behavior on the road.”
“More people biking and walking means more people wanting to live in New Haven” he told the group.
Click here to read about the status of a Harp administration plan to build a protected two-way bike lane on the west side of town.
