Signs prepared by street-safety activists.
Laura Glesby Photo
Safe-streeters gather for Sunday’s memorial event on the Green.
Milton Williams. Julio Ruiz. Anthony Little. Govinda Kandel. Gilberto Molina …
Keonho Lim, 25, killed three weeks ago on South Frontage. Celeste Staten, run over a month earlier on Whalley. Eric Pechalonis, struck a month before that on the Boulevard …
Maurice Messier. Kevin Anthony Cunningham. Arthur Bastek …
These eleven pedestrians all died in car crashes on New Haven streets within the past year. Early on Sunday afternoon, road safety activist Kai Addae read their names aloud to a hushed group of 25 concerned cyclists and pedestrians on New Haven Green.
The group had gathered to honor World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Many came with their own near-death experiences as pedestrians, or with the memories of loved ones killed in car crashes across the country.
They also came with a vision of what safer New Haven roads could look like, including more sidewalks, fewer lanes, traffic light cameras, and lower speed limits.
Kai Addae.
Addae, who led the event, is a community organizer with Safe Streets Coalition of New Haven. She spoke to the group about Mark Angeles, a college friend of hers who died in a car crash in Portland, Oregon, the week after graduation.
Looking beyond individual drivers’ and pedestrians’ actions, Addae and other Safe Streets Coalition activists attribute responsibility for traffic deaths to the structural conditions that contribute to crashes: road design and transportation policy.
“They’re crashes, not accidents,” Addae emphasized.
After her formal remarks, Addae listed an array of changes she would like to see transform New Haven’s streets: Interconnected bike lanes that are physically separated from cars. More green islands like the one that divides much of Edgewood Avenue. Cameras to automatically enforce speeding and traffic light violations.
This last ask is perhaps the most controversial. In recent years, proposed state bills that would have allowed for red light or speeding cameras have not been successful. Some critics of these measures say that imposing fines on individual drivers is overly punitive, or that the practice has disproportionate repercussions for drivers who cannot afford to pay.
Addae said she envisions red light and speeding cameras as a temporary measure to ultimately be replaced by infrastructure-based traffic calming strategies. She noted that cameras have been effective in New York City.
“You can’t fix traffic safety with enforcement, but you also can’t rebuild every road in a day,” she said.
Max Chaoulideer (left) remembers his friend, Donald Carrelli.
Safety streets activist Melinda Tuhus spoke of “20 is plenty”, a new campaign for a 20 mile-per-hour speed limit in New Haven, down from 25 miles per hour, aimed at reducing the likelihood of death in the event of a car crash.
“When someone is killed, the driver by definition was going too fast,” said Tuhus.
Tuhus recalled a time when she was crossing Trumbull Street on Orange, by the I‑91 entrance ramp. A car accelerated in her direction, she said. She screamed as loud as she could, figuring that the driver could have been blasting music. The car dodged her at the last minute. The experience shook her. She believes she could have died.
Many of the Safe Street Coalition’s goals would require the state to give New Haven local control over speed limits and certain streets. That’s why the activists’ next step is to urge state legislators to prioritize pedestrian safety.
Max Chaoulideer criticized the extent to which Connecticut’s urban planning has prioritized convenience for drivers of private cars over public transit, biking, and pedestrian infrastructure. Mobility shouldn’t be difficult or high-risk for people who can’t afford a car, he said. In his view, the issue of safety is intertwined with sustainability and equity.
Chaoulideer said he still doesn’t feel safe biking in some areas after losing a friend, Donald Carrelli, to a car crash in Wallingford. The two of them were biking back from a cyclist event when a drunk driver swerved in their direction and killed Carrelli.
“The fact that it’s so normalized is so alarming,” he said of car crashes.
Sabrina Whiteman: It’s “walk at your own risk.”
Sabrina Whiteman said she used to commute to work Downtown by walking along Whalley Avenue, a notoriously unsafe street for pedestrians, from her former home in Beaver Hills. Whiteman spoke to a sense that Whalley’s design can impact driving culture itself.
She’s observed a “lack of empathy for pedestrians from motorists — a lack of care,” she said.
“It’s a walkable city, but it’s ‘walk at your own risk.’”