Christopher Peak Photo
Paramedics wheel an overdose victim into the emergency room.
Changing New Haven’s bus hubs won’t just make travel easier. It might help counter the concentration of methadone users overdosing downtown on other drugs.
So suggested New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.
She made the suggestion while responding to a caller to the latest edition of WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program. The caller asked if she had thoughts about the latest spate of overdoses around town.
The city fire department dispatched its paramedics to 547 overdoses last year, about three-fifths of which are presumed to be for heroin. Most are related to opioid abuse. In recent weeks, New Haven has also seen at least two spates of overdoses related to the use of K2, or synthetic marijuana, that often gets mixed with other substances. One day last week, at least seven people in and around downtown were treated within hours for K2-related overdoses, according to emergency management chief Rick Fontana.
Harp noted on the radio program that people from throughout Connecticut who battle addiction take buses to New Haven to get methadone treatment. They all stop at the Green to make other bus connections. Many spend hours a day zoned out in and around the Green and the Ninth Square, sometimes OD’ing on other drugs as well.
The city is looking at asking CT Transit to create other hubs around town for riders to make connections. The Harp administration has pursued that goal for a while in the broader context of making bus service more convenient, with cross-town routes, for instance, rather than having everybody travel to and from the Green to connect to other lines.
Harp mentioned three possible new hubs: in the Hill, Fair Haven, and the East Shore.
After the show, city transit chief Doug Hausladen said the administration has specifically targeted the Route 80 Walmart as one place where many riders from eastern suburbs may more conveniently catch other buses; Grand Avenue and Ferry Street as another highly-traveled spot that could make sense for more connections to different lines; and the conjunction of Davenport, Congress and Washington Avenues near the Boulevard.
But that will take time. The city has been working on a state-funded “transit mobility study” to come up with recommendations for improving CT Transit service in the region. The study was originally envisioned to be completed by now. But after looking at a first phase draft (read it here), the state Department of Transportation decided it needs more detailed information about ridership patterns. So now the city’s working on a $300,000 “origin and destination” survey that should take about six months, Hausladen said. (The money for the study comes from the state and from the Regional Council of Governments.) Once that’s done, work will commence on part two of the study, with completion anticipated around next January.
Public Housing Security
In response to another listener question Monday, Harp promised to look into how to protect public-housing tenants in town now that the Housing Authority has decided to stop paying for security.
The authority’s board has decided, in the face of federal cutbacks, to end a contract with an outside security firm, as reported in this story by the Register’s Mary O’Leary.
“[R]esidents are at risk for drugs and abuse,” listener Zih Bladez told Harp Monday via Facebook Live.
“This is a problem,” Harp agreed. She said she, too, had been caught by surprise by the decision. (The housing authority is a federally funded agency separate from city government, though the city works closely with it.) “We read in in the newspaper like everybody else.”
Harp said her team is working with the authority on the issue. One idea is to place more security cameras inside developments, she said. Another involves looking at developments with the highest crime numbers to concentrate limited security resources.
Click on the above audio file or Facebook Live video below for the full episode of WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program, which included discussion of gun control, climate change, Milfrod-versus-New Haven retail and transit connections to Tweed-New Haven Airport.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.