Jabez Choi photo
Still figuring it out: Drivers side-by-side across double yellow line on newly two-way stretch of York.
As Yale New Haven Hospital staffer Rosalyn Curry walked out of work and down York Street, a car sped past her, barreling down the wrong side of the street. She shouted after the driver: “It’s a two-way now!”
That one-block stretch of York Street, running underneath the Air Rights Garage between South Frontage and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, was converted to a two-way road on Tuesday.
The car turned left onto MLK, out of sight. Two digital signs notified drivers of the new development — one on MLK, heading into the intersection with York Street, and another underneath the Air Rights Garage overpass.
“She was impatient or something,” Curry said. “I don’t think people get it yet, so there’s probably going to be a couple of accidents because these cars don’t know.”
The York Street two-way conversion is a part of a series of improvements expected on South Frontage Road.
In 2023, the state Department of Transportation’s Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program provided the city with $1.5 million in an effort to make numerous improvements to the road for civilian safety, including raised sidewalks and the narrowing of travel lanes.
As part of this group of traffic-safety improvements, the city also received $250,000 to extend York Street’s two-way street to MLK, with the intention to slow car speeds. The city had already converted an adjacent segment of York Street between South Frontage and Howard Avenue to a two-way road in order to provide a detour around nearby construction.
South Frontage saw 163 car crashes between Jan. 1, 2020 and Jan. 1, 2023, with an accident as recently as this morning at an intersection with College Street.
Tuesday’s York Street conversion is a part of a larger city effort to convert several downtown streets from one-way to two-way, according to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller. This is in part to reduce gas emissions and improve mobility and safety.
A new signal will be installed at the intersection of York and MLK Jr. Boulevard, alongside new pavement markings and upgraded parking meters. The city is currently working on a design to extend the York Street conversion to Chapel and Grove Streets, though funding for these projects have not been acquired yet.
This car has it figured out.