The city has $550,000 more to spend on traffic-calming — including a roundabout at Munson, Crescent and Winthrop — thanks to fund-shifting made possible by the federal stimulus plan.
The federal government came through with $3 million to help pay for signal synchronization and other traffic work the city has planned.
The city was therefore able to move around $550,000 that had been earmarked for other traffic work to the Complete Streets program, city traffic czar Michael Piscitelli told the Capitol Projects Committee Wednesday night.
The committee unanimously approved moving the money and sent the plan to the Board of Aldermen for its approval. (The committee is not part of the Board of Aldermen.)
The Complete Streets program, which has been in development for a couple of years, aims to slow down cars and make biking and walking safer around town. It consists of mostly small measures, such as traffic humps on Vista Terrace in Westville, Piscitelli said after the meeting.
Roundabout Coming?
One example of the kind of project Complete Streets could fund is a traffic circle proposal for the confluence of Munson and Crescent streets and Winthrop Avenue (pictured).
The plan got an enthusiastic reception from a neighborhood management committee on Tuesday, said Beaver Hills Alderman Mordechai Sandman, who also is a member of the Capital Projects Committee.
Under the proposal, the city would build a roundabout in which traffic moving along Crescent, Munson and Winthrop would have to enter the circle instead of being controlled by a traffic light or, as is now the case, a blinker, Sandman said.
Although the funds transfer approved by the panel Wednesday would not specifically pay for this project, it is the type of project the city wants to do with that $550,000, he said.
“We are talking about the roundabout because we have Hillhouse High School and there is a large amount of traffic,” he said. A survey showed there were 30 accidents last year, he said.
“People try to see up the hill on Munson and see across Crescent while people are whipping across Crescent,” he said.
While a traffic signal would contribute pollution and people would invariably run the red lights, a traffic circle would reduce speeds from the normal 40 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour because the lanes leading up to it would narrow and the circle itself would slow traffic, he said.
There was no cost estimate available for the traffic circle Wednesday night.
Sandman was enthusiastic about the traffic circle in particular and the designation of funds for Complete Streets.
“This is exactly the type of thing that New Haven needs to focus on. We need smarter designed streets with traffic calming measures. We have children playing on streets, we have deaths in the city, and we need to stop that,” he said.
Sandman predicted the Complete Streets funding will not have a problem with aldermanic approval.
“I would be foolish to speak for my colleagues, but this will go before the Finance Committee, of which I am a member. I will strongly support it there as well as from the floor and I believe my colleagues will support it,” he said.
Piscitelli said if the aldermen approve the funding in October, then work will start in the spring.
The panel also approved the transfer of $3.4 million to fund a dozen traffic signals around the Yale-New Haven Hospital campus. The move would redesignate funds the city has already bonded and move it around in its categories.
“It is part of the development agreement with the hospital and medical school that laid out the city’s responsibilities under a cost-sharing agreement,” Rob Smuts, the city’s chief administrative officer, said after the meeting. He said the funding would be offset by $1.2 million, which represents the hospital’s participation in the agreement.
Committee Chairman Zelly Goldberg (at right in photo listening to answer with committee members Alderwoman Arlene DePino and Sandman) asked if the hospital’s share of the money will be in city hands by the time the project ends. Yes, replied Deputy Development Administrator Chrissy Bonanno.