A new plan identifies 10 one-way streets to convert into two-way as part of the most significant change to the downtown grid in more than a half-century: Dwight, Howe, Park, York, College, Church, and Hillhouse on the north-south axis; George, Crown, Grove on the east-west.
In addition to expanding the two-way street network, the city would add bike routes, make bus routes more reliable, and make pedestrians safer as vehicle speeds downtown drop.
Those goals emerged from a week-long public “charrette” process that culminated with a presentation Thursday evening by city transportation chief Jim Travers and his consultants from the Manchester-based Fuss & Oneill engineering company. (Click here for a previous story and reader debate.)
The recommendations seek to reverse the speedy one-way entrances and exits to downtown that the city created in the 1960s when people fled central New Haven for the suburbs. Now they are returning. The task of the consultants, in conjunction with interested New Haveners: to create a new road grid to reflect a pedestrian- and bike-friendly, rather than car-centric, “new urbanist” approach to developing the city.
(Click here to read the PowerPoint presentation, complete with maps of the proposed new two-way network that loops around downtown’s nine squares.)
About 25 people attended the presentation of the culmination of phase one of the “work-in-progress” Thursday night in the community room of the Ives Memorial Library, the main library branch on Elm Street.
The dark green are the propsoed new two-ways. The brown are the existing one-ways.
The group’s plans will set in motion a first phase of the work, which will involve preparing to relane roads, paint sharrows (directional signals for cyclists) and erect new signs. The first phase will commence within one to three years, said Travers. Depending on funding, a second phase — it might deal with such features as medians with plantings decorating the new two-ways — would begin in approximately five years, said Travers.
The first phase wouldn’‘t cost New Haven taxpayers a dime, said Travers; the bulk of the fees would be paid for by grants from SCROG, the South Central Regional Council of Governments.
The defined area of the first phase was designated as downtown, bounded by Trumbull and South Frontage, Dwight, and State streets.
The proposal is to have a grand, intuitive loop of two-way streets around the nine-square area that will make negotiating downtown far easier for people new to the city, reduce frustration and driving time through more direct routes, and increase safety for pedestrians, visibility and shoppers for merchants, and expand legal riding opportunities for cyclists.
The recommendations call for bike lanes in both directions on many of the new two-ways, including the newly two-way Church Street, which planners call the future bicycle “spine” of downtown.
Allan Appel Photo
Landscape designer Channing Harris said he looks forward to seeing the cupola and entrance to Yale’s Silliman College from two-way Hillhouse.
Fuss & O’Neill’s Ted DeSantos and Sarah Lewis called the plan a “work in progress.” It reflects both the research of the consultants along with the input of the public over the past week. At two hands-on design sessions people reported their frustrations about their commutes, their sense of the dangers at certain intersections, and made concrete suggestions.
The consultants now move on to phase two, which is drilling down on details of the required new turning lanes, lane and street widths, and new signalization for the street-by-street conversion.
All these changes, when fully designed and ready, must go through the City Plan and Board of Aldermen approval process.
Before the public input of this week’s charrette sessions the consultants measured traffic at 65 intersections. They consulted with an advisory committee of downtown business people, the Town Green Special Services District, city staff, Yale-New Haven Hospital, neighbors from Dwight and the Hill, along with police and fire officials.
“New Haven has an excellent street grid and can accommodate the changes,” said DeSantos. “Of 65 street locations, all but three can operate acceptably in a two-way situation. That’s stunning,” he said.
“What has been surprising is the degree of consensus at the opportunity presented,” he said.
All the “stakeholders” have bought into the plan thus far, said Town Green Special Services Director Win Davis. He said businesses see the advantage of slower traffic, which gives stores more visibility and shoppers, and more safety to pedestrians and bicyclists,
“This is a huge positive step for downtown, and downtown retail,” Davis said. Travers said no parking spots would be lost as a result of two-way street conversions.
Police and fire officials also supported the changes, reported Sarah Lewis. They raised concerns about the turning radius for the large emergency vehicles. Those could be addressed by moving back the stop lines at the intersections, she said.
“Fire and police are on board,” said Travers. He said out that in 1959, before the two-ways had become one-way for the convenience of suburban in-and-out drivers, the safety services got to their emergency calls just fine.
Lewis said that CT Transit officials were particularly pleased when they attended the charrette sessions during the week. They liked how the proposed new grid will increase the reliability and efficiency of bus routes and render routes B and D shorter, for example, she reported.
The city’s bicycle advocates also contributed ideas that the consultants adopted. Originally only nine streets were chosen for conversion to two-way. Cyclists suggested adding Hillhouse; if two-way, it would be a good alternative to the one-way Temple to ride downtown.
Planners agreed, and nine one-to-two-way conversions became ten.
Similarly, cyclists suggested that the short run of Court Street, though narrow, would make a good connector for riders entering the downtown area from Wooster Square.
While Court would remain one-way, the consultants suggested bicycle sharrows in one direction and another “contra-flow” bike lane against the one-way traffic on Court so bike riders can enter and leave downtown all on Court.
Travers (pictured at the corner of Chapel and Howe) said he was particularly excited about the opportunities that two-way Howe, Park, and York woud offer. He said there are lots of business opportunities that would be opened up. The change will enable downtown’s “vibrance” to transfer to the Chapel West district, he predicted.
There is already federal grant money in hand to pay for a new signalization of many of the downtown intersections affected by these proposals, said Travers. As that signalization begins to go into design, it will be created with the new two-way concept in mind, he added.
The fate of long one-way major streets such as Chapel, Elm, and Edgewood was not part of the phase one consideration in part because their impact stretches way beyond the defined downtown grid.
The New Haven Urban Design League’s Anstress Farwell, often a critic of short-sighted New Haven planning, praised the proposals created thus far.
With all the other construction projects going on around, “it’s important to jump in now to create a flexible system” that will provide relief to attendant traffic problems, she said.