It’s “rush hour for three hours” every night in George Gillan’s neighborhood.
When three state roads intersect where you live, as is the case for residents of the Bishop Woods area north of Route 80, that makes for special traffic-calming challenges.
On Tuesday night, Gillan and some 25 participants in the Quinnipiac East Management Team (QEMT) took their first organizational steps to address chronic congestion, speeding, and stop sign running
“There’s no need for us to reinvent the wheel,” said QEMT chair George Page as he referenced the traffic-calming work of Fair Haven Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale. (Click here and here to read about that.)
After providing a tutorial on roundabouts, curb extensions, and chicanes – “I had to look up that one: those are a series of five curves,” Page (pictured with Lt. Jeff Hoffman) said as he solicited his audience to submit specific problem spots as a first step.
It immediately became clear that many of the traffic-calming strategies appropriate for the smaller city streets may not apply to the unique problems of the QEMT area, where Route 80, Route 17, and Route 103 (Quinnipiac Avenue), all state roads, interact with each other.
Not the least of the issues is that city officials have far less influence on solutions on state roads, which are the domain of state Department of Transportation (DOT).
Gillan complained that a new light on Route 80 in front of the new store Aldi’s, just beyond the light at Eastern, is having the effect of backing up traffic all the way to the Quinnipiac/Route 80 intersection. “It’s rush hour around here for three hours,” he said.
Gillan (pictured) suggested that a regular three-way light — by Aldi’s on the south side of Route 80 and an auto supply store on the north — be turned into a blinking red light.
“We also have long straightaways here too,” added Page, referring to Quinnipiac Avenue, whose run from the North Haven line down to Forbes Avenue is nearly four miles.
The upcoming Q Avenue redo, which will include traffic calming measures, will stop at Clifton Street, leaving the run from there straight north, and often too fast.
Stop Sign = Traffic Calmer?
In the hilly areas north of Route 80, District Manager Lt. Jeff Hoffman suggested, neighbors have good reason to request stop signs.
“I know that not using stop signs is in vogue as a traffic-calming strategy,” he said, “but I would suggest that there is a place for them.”
One such place may be on the corner near where Philip Czekala lives. That would be the corners of Cranston and Portland and also Cranston and Weybosset. There, said Czekala, there are only two stop signs at these intersection near the bottom of a steep and dangerous hill.
Hoffman said additional stop signs there, turning the intersection into a four-way stop, would work there. Drivers use Cranston as a short cut from Middletown to Quinnipiac, he said. They tend to gun it past blind spots on the hill.
“I’ve seen people get going and gas it as fast as 50,” said Czekala (pictured).”
“Two more lousy stop signs wouldn’t break the city’s back,” said Gillan. He also said that the choker on River Street might work if the stop signs weren’t in the offing.
Hoffman compared the situation in part to the stop sign at Parker Street on Townsend Avenue, where, he said, cruisers often set up to enforce the stop sign as drivers race along the seawall. “That sign gets people to slow down from 50 to 15 or so,” he said.
As for straightaways such as Quinnipiac Avenue, Hoffman endorsed the kind of traffic calming measures developed by Sturgis-Pascale and the Fair Haveners.
“Tonight is our first step,” cautioned Page. “We’re building on the resources of others, but we do have to make some noise here.”
Page said his next step will be to codify the area’s priorities and get the three aldermen who represent the huge QEMT geographical area, Robert Lee, Gerald Antunes, and Alex Rhodeen, to work in concert to bring in DOT.
Hoffman said city traffic chief Mike Piscitelli’s usual procedure is to have a series of requests for traffic amelioration endorsed by the management team in a formal letter. “When you have that letter ready, you can add my name,” Hoffman said, “to the endorsement of those stop signs.”