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Safe streets improvements that could be included in city’s active transportation plan.
Don’t let this be just another “binder on a shelf.”
Local alternative transportation advocates issued that call to action in advance of the public release of a new citywide plan focused on making it easier and safer to walk, bike, and take the bus around New Haven.
That plan is called the Safe Routes for All Active Transportation Plan.
It’s the fruit of two years of research by the city in partnership with the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) and the consulting firm Street Plans.
During the most recent regular monthly meeting of the Board of Alders City Services and Environmental Policy (CSEP) committee, alders hosted an online workshop on the latest with the federally funded planning process.
They also heard from local transportation activists about the importance of funding and implementing the plan once its completed, and not just letting its recommendations sit and gather dust.
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Last week’s CSEP workshop.
“We believe that a comprehensive streets plan that prioritizes vulnerable users and equitable mobility is essential to advance” the alders’ top policy goals of good jobs, a safe city, affordable housing, health equity, and environmental justice, New Haven Safe Streets Coalition organizer Lior Trestman said during the public hearing portion of Thursday’s meeting.
That means putting money towards whatever recommendations come out of the plan, and then actually building out new bike lanes and signalized intersections and safer sidewalks.
Fellow Safe Streets organizer Rob Rocke agreed.
“I don’t want to see another plan that sits as a binder on a shelf,” Rocke said. Planning only means so much if there’s no implementation that follows.
Click here to watch the meeting in full.
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The Safe Routes for All program dates back to 2019.
That’s when the city partnered with CARE and Street Plans to start studying intersections, bike lanes, sidewalks, and bus stops all across New Haven.
The goal: to figure out how to improve the ease of mobility for walkers, cyclists, bus riders, and other non-motorized users of the road as they commute to work, go to the grocery store, and otherwise move across town, all at a time when car crashes and pedestrian fatalities are on the rise.
Phase 1 of the project saw the implementation of several “tactical urbanist” temporary traffic calming projects—including the narrowing of intersections with painted pavement in six city neighborhoods.
Earlier this year, the Safe Routes for All team resumed its public outreach for the Phase 2 master planning process by conducting walking and biking tours across the city to identify different “pain points,” such as busted sidewalks and incomplete bike lanes.
This work has been funded so far by a federal REACH grant that CARE landed several years ago to promote health equity in New Haven by improving access to healthcare, healthy food, and physical activity.
“The intention around this plan is to make sure that we have safe multimodal access all over New Haven,” city Acting Transportation, Traffic & Parking (TT&P) Director Karla Lindquist told the committee alders on Thursday.
“We believe that every New Haven resident has a right to connect safely and efficiently to a variety of services,” added Street Plans Senior Project Manager Dana Wall.
So, what will be in this plan?
Details are still TBD.
Wall promised that the plan will be made available for public review and discussion during a trio of community meetings to take place at the end of September, two online on Sept. 28 and Sept. 30, and one in person on Sept. 29 at 6 p.m. at Scantlebury Park.
Wall nevertheless did give a high-level overview Thursday of the types of recommendations to be included in the active transportation document.
They will broadly be broken out into three sections, focusing respectively on walking, biking, and public transportation.
The walking recommendations will be based off a new database that Street Plans is putting together that tracks the conditions of sidewalks and crosswalks at all 1,500-plus intersections in the city. That database will indicate which intersections currently have sidewalks, the condition of those sidewalks, the presence or absence of pedestrian signals and traffic signals, etc…
“The intersection database is going to give us a look at the larger pockets of the city most deficient in adequate pedestrian infrastructure,” she said. That in turn will inform recommendations for specific sidewalk and intersection improvements — such as curb extensions and shortened pedestrian crossings — at specific intersections across the city.
The biking recommendations will be based off of a review of all of the city’s current bike lanes. That research will inform recommendations for new and enhanced bike routes, to be built out in coordination with the city’s street milling and paving schedule, that would help realize “a future vision for a full bike network.”
And the bus transit recommendations will stem from a review of the decade-long, state-funded Move New Haven transit study—and will focus on quick, cheap “tactical urban” fixes for making the city’s public transit system work better in the short term even as the state rolls out costlier, longer-term solutions.
All of the alders on the committee praised the city, Care, and Street Plans for the work they’ve put into the planning process. They all said they’re eager to see the recommendations included in the draft and final reports later this fall.
“This project touches on so many issues” facing the city right now, Prospect Hill/Dixwell/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter said, from the challenges of getting to work to the climate crisis.
“We really do need this. And we really need to find the funding for this” to make sure the recommendations are acted on if and when the report is adopted.