Allan Appel File Photo
Pearl Street looking west toward Yale SOM.
A perilous stretch of Pearl Street may finally get a sidewalk between Orange Street and the Yale School of Management campus.
The green light for the installation of sidewalk on the north side of Pearl, where a pedestrian was struck in April last year and many near-misses have been reported, came in a unanimous 4 – 0 vote by the City Plan Commission (CPC) Wednesday night.
It was part of the proceedings of the regular meeting of the CPC, convened over the Zoom teleconferencing app and hosted by CPC Deputy Director Jenna Montesano.
Technically the vote was to approve an order referred by the Board of Alders to accept $50,000 in funding from Yale University to help underwrite the cost of the sidewalk installation.
The balance of the cost, $40,000, will be paid for by the city, reported City Engineer Giovanni Zinn.
After an SOM student was hit by a car at the Pearl and Lincoln intersection last year, neighbors came en masse to a meeting of the Board of Traffic Commissioners demanding that attention be paid.
And it was, in part.
A stop sign was installed at Pearl and Lincoln. But distracted students were still walking on the road, as there is partial sidewalk on the south side and none on the north.
That section of Pearl Street continues to be heavily used by cyclists and pedestrians. It is especially dangerous at rush hour, as vehicles cut in from Orange Street to avoid the tie-up at Trumbull.
Simply put, Zinn said, “it has a lot of traffic.”
Zinn credited the leadership of Wooster Square/Downtown Alder Abby Roth with spearheading the effort to have the sidewalk installed.
The unanimous vote followed Zinn’s brief presentation, with no discussion.