Christopher Peak Photo
Doug Hausladen at Bike Share rollout.
By summer’s end, crews should start working on building a long-planned two-way protected bike lane on the west side of town. Another crew should begin putting in new downtown traffic lights in the fall to help traffic flow better.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen offered those and other updates on matters two-wheeled and four during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
Among Hausladen’s updates:
• About 1,400 trips were taken on 100 bicycles during the first alpha-phase month of the city’s new Bike Share program. Nineteen of the first 30 bike share stations are up and operating; 11 more will come on line soon. Those 30 will not include Westville. The first batch does include Newhallville. Original discussions around the program’s first phase focused on the city’s core transportation hubs downtown; elected officials made the inclusion of Newhallvile a condition for approval. Hausladen added that the neighborhood’s density and location along the Farmington Canal trail also made it a good spot to include.
• The city hopes to unclog those interminable back-ups for people trying to leave the Temple Street Garage at peak times (like when the Shubert lets out) by enabling people to pay their tickets before getting into their cars, then having a computer read their license plates at the exit booth. That’s part of a broader “smart parking” plan for which the city has sent out a request for proposals.
• Hausladen’s office is seeking approval for a three-year pilot plan for a “performance-based parking” plan that would have fees and time limits change at different locations based on demand, with a goal of 85 percent occupancy. (Click here to read more about that.)
• The city plans to ask the state to adjust the morning departure times for trains included in new daily service to Hartford and Springfield, which is scheduled to go into effect this month. Right now morning trains will leave for Hartford at 7:31 and 8:56, but not in between — meaning taking the service makes sense only if someone’s shift begins at 8 .m., Hausladen said. The city will ask that more morning departures be added when the state adjusts timetables in September. The service to New Haven from Hartford better accommodates morning schedules, which should help New Haven employers, Hausladen said. But New Haven loses out because “more high-paying jobs” are in Hartford.
Listener Mark Abram of the DataHaven organization posted an online comment during the show reporting that “Hartford has about 120,000 higher-wage jobs located within 4 miles of its train station” and “New Haven has about 70,000.” He also listed estimates of “net” gains of daily workers in various Connecticut cities (meaning how many come into each city to work versus how many leave town to work elsewhere):
Hartford +70K
New Haven +40K
Stamford +20K
Greenwich +10K
Bridgeport ‑10K
CDM Smith
Design for part of cycletrack.
• The Office of State Traffic Administration has given needed approval for work on traffic signals as part of construction of a two-mile protected two-way “cycletrack” bike lane from Forest Road to Park Street, which has been years in the making. All that’s left is obtaining routine approval from the state Department of Transportation (which has already approved the project itself) to issue a construction permit, and to complete the RFP process to select a contractor. Hausladen estimated that work can begin on the $1.2 million state-funded cycletrack by August.
• Work should begin in the fall on eight new downtown traffic signals to connect them to the city’s central computer system, and thereby improve their timing to ease the flow of car traffic.
Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for the full interview with Doug Hausladen on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.