Parents Petition Against Tweed Traffic Change

The Elicker administration plans to build a new airport exit and roundabout at Burr and Dean Streets to address heavy traffic near Tweed — prompting pushback from some Nathan Hale parents who are concerned that cars will now be directed towards an already ​“hectic” school zone.

On Friday morning outside of Nathan Hale School at 480 Townsend Ave., Morris Cove parents Lisa Bassani, Kathy Gonzalez, and Sara Amato stood with clipboards during 7 a.m. school drop-off. They were collecting signatures from families who oppose the airport traffic-change proposal. 

Over 200 Nathan Hale families and Morris Cove neighbors have signed the petition so far, indicating their concern that the redirection of some airport traffic towards Townsend will lead to unsafe road conditions by the school during pickup and drop-off times. 

Nathan Hale parents and staff told the Independent they’ve witnessed or directly experienced several close calls in front of the school due to speeding drivers who fly over the Townsend Avenue raised crosswalk at the school’s entrance.

Gonzalez said she learned about the proposed roundabout from an article published in March by the Yale Daily News. Bassani noted that the plan to construct another Tweed exit with the help of a roundabout at the intersection of Dean and Burr Streets will guide traffic toward the school and a nearby church. 

In a separate interview on Friday, Mayor Justin Elicker said that vehicles leaving the main Tweed terminal will still use Fort Hale Road, even after the new exit and roundabout are constructed. 

Cars leaving the airport’s Lot C and vehicles going to the arrivals area, meanwhile, will be able to drive to the end of Burr Street, use the new exit and roundabout, and then turn onto Townsend Avenue. He reported that the traffic coming from the airport’s Lot C and arrivals will only be 30 percent of Tweed’s daily traffic. 

In response to neighbors stating Friday that Elicker did not respond to a recent email shared about neighbors’ concerns, Elicker said he received the email the day before on Thursday and plans to respond. 

“We don’t anticipate a significant increase in traffic at the school,” Elicker said about the roundabout plan.

The goal for the additional exit managed by a roundabout is to make sure there won’t be one street disproportionally impacted by the airport traffic, he said. 

He noted that Tweed typically doesn’t see the bulk of departure traffic for outgoing flights in the morning when Nathan Hale’s drop-off occurs. 

City Engineer Giovanni Zinn told the Independent in a Friday phone interview that this type of project should take one to two months to construct. The project will also connect new sidewalk networks on Burr to increase pedestrian safety.

Zinn plans to host a Zoom meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday to update neighbors about the project’s timeline and other details. 

After a November city/Tweed community meeting, Zinn said the team heard back from neighbors about the concerns with increasing traffic in Townsend’s school zone and so they have since added an electric messaging sign that will notify those at the Dean/Burr exit to avoid heading down Burr Street during the school’s pickup and drop-off times. (Click here to view the November presentation, which does not include information on the additional signage to be added.)

While Elicker said there is ​“no perfect solution to it,” his focus is on addressing the challenges that neighbors have been experiencing as a result of increased traffic congestion at the airport spilling onto residential streets. 

He said Zinn and his team studied the flow of traffic on Burr Street to try to find a way to have less congestion on the residential streets. An important consideration was identifying the internal ​“pinch points” that were causing traffic build up and improving the internal layout of the airport. 

“Seventy percent of traffic will stay where it is today,” Zinn said, even after the roundabout is installed.

Back outside Nathan Hale School Friday morning, Gonzalez said that when her three kids are dropped off at Nathan Hale daily by her husband, she is too often met with horror stories of cars blowing through the raised crosswalk and not looking out for children or even the crossing guard. 

“It’s treacherous on a perfect day here,” she said. ​“Now add rain, snow, and airport traffic.” 

Another parent at Nathan Hale, John Kraszewski, said that the traffic on Townsend is ​“already too much even with it currently being directed away from the school.” 

He said the internal airport traffic can often bring frustrated drivers into the residential areas because of long waits at and around the airport. ​“It’s gonna be a nightmare,” he said. 

He worries for the safety of students, staff, and parents because he’s witnessed drivers speeding through the crosswalk’s indicator lights signaling a walker is approaching. 

As another mom, Perla, signed Friday’s petition, she said she thinks the roundabout idea is ​“crazy” and is glad that she no longer has to cross over Townsend to drop off her three children that currently attend Nathan Hale.

Another parent suggested the city install a traffic light near the school on Townsend.

Two Nathan Hale staffers signed Friday’s petition before heading into the building, saying, ​“It’s an accident waiting to happen.” 

Others said that they know neighbors on airport-adjacent streets who struggle to leave their home driveways because they get blocked by airport traffic. Zinn acknowledged residents driveway complaints in a Friday interview. They also mentioned that it doesn’t help that most of the side streets are very narrow. 

“There are all these accommodations to Tweed and everything is at the expense of our community,” Bassani said. ​“This community does not have the infrastructure to accommodate anymore.” 

One Nathan Hale staffer said they’ve had at least ten close calls at the raised crosswalk while wearing a high visibility reflective coat. They suggested the current raised crosswalk bump be higher to really slow down speeding cars. 

The school’s parent-teacher organization (PTO) has purchased safety cones for the crosswalk, but many of them have repeatedly gotten run over. 

Amato noted that Friday’s traffic was less than usual because it was a half day and attendance typically dips on half days. On a typical day, she said, cars make tight squeezes past one another, speed, and even park on the school’s curb. Much of that was present in Friday’s drop off in light rain.

The parents plan to petition Morris Cove homes and to present the hundreds of signatures to the school district and city this week. The group began collecting signatures last Tuesday. 

“The worst way to deal with traffic is bring it in front of a school,” Bassani concluded. ​“This is a schools issue because the number-one job of a superintendent of schools is to protect the safety and wellbeing of students.” 

Public schools spokesperson Justin Harmon declined to comment for this story.

Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that the new exit will be for vehicles coming from Lot C and arrivals, not just Lot C.