Drawing a “line in the sand” over the hit-and-run killing of an 11-year-old girl, Westville neighbors signed onto a citywide “safe streets” campaign and pressed for action on the fatal intersection’s traffic light.
The action took place at Tuesday night’s monthly meeting of the Westville Community Management Team, at the police substation on Valley Road. It was the first meeting since a hit-and-run driver took the life of Gabrielle Lee (pictured), 11, at Whalley Avenue and Davis Street. Her killing provoked the latest outcry in a growing citywide movement for “traffic-calming.” (Read about that here here, and here.)
Management team member Paul Chambers (pictured at the top of this story) has been studying that intersection since the June 5 accident. He reported on his findings at Tuesday’s meeting.
He said the light used to be on a continual green for Whalley drivers, with a trip for the occasional Davis Street motorist. But that changed after a city street crew milled Davis Street to repave it — and the result may have made the intersection more dangerous.
“The timing of the light invites contempt for the light,” Chambers concluded.
Chambers learned that city street improvement work wrecked the controls that trip the traffic light for Davis drivers. So now the light alternates red for 30 seconds on Whalley and then 30 seconds on Davis, a side street with little traffic.
“Many people go through there — 25,000 cars a day — and every 30 seconds they’re stopped on Whalley Avenue,” Chambers said. “And many people notice there’s never anyone on that side street when they’re stopped, so they develop a sense of entitlement to go through the light.”
Chambers added that the state Department of Transportation told him it can’t fix the timing of the light until the city fixes the control loop. Beaver Hills Alderman Tom Lehtonen (pictured) said he’d follow up with city transportation chief Mike Piscitelli to see about the repair getting made.
Mark Abraham, one of the founders of New Haven Safe Streets, came to the meeting to ask the management team to endorse a petition calling for “immediate action to improve traffic safety within our communities.” Some of the “therefores” in the petition include strict enforcement of the city’s 25 mph speed limit and all other traffic regulations. Also, Abraham added, “It requests access to public safety information and policing information, so that communities like this can really advocate for what can be done to improve safety. It requests reviews at the city level to try to reduce the number of injuries by 90 percent.” He added that safe streets are a big factor in perceived quality of life and also in promoting local retail.
Thea Buxbaum (pictured), with tears in her eyes, said the death of Gabby Lee “must be our line in the sand.” She also reported that a staffer at the Project for Public Spaces in New York City now lives in New Haven and has volunteered to do a traffic calming study and will be conducting a survey at the Edgewood Park farmers’ market every Sunday with an intern from the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance.
CMT chair Mary Faulkner (pictured) proposed that the group endorse the petition; it was approved unanimously, so Westville joined several other management teams in supporting the effort. And everyone was encouraged to sign it individually, thereby adding to the 800 names already gathered. Advocates of the petition will be addressing all the management teams and have so far won over 20 of the city’s 30 alders as well as several elected state officials.
Another point of discussion was the proposed widening of Whalley Avenue from Emerson to Ramsdell streets. Last week Rep. Pat Dillon sent a letter to DOT officials asking them to convene a meeting to discuss traffic safety and calming measures associated with the project and to postpone the bidding process on design work until after the meeting. CMT chair Faulker said she hopes the DOT will comply with that request. Dillon and Sen. Toni Harp are planning a public meeting on the issue for sometime in July.
When the fact emerged that virtually all the money raised through ticketing for moving violations goes to the state, not the city, many residents were shocked. “That’s right,” said Lt. Bernie Somers (pictured on the left). He explained the city gets the money from parking tickets but just a tiny percentage of the fines from moving violations. The administration of Mayor John DeStefano has been trying to get more of those bucks to come back to the city, so far to no avail. Some believe such a change would provide an incentive for city cops to issue more tickets for moving violations, i.e., the time these city employees spend issuing tickets could be “reimbursed” by the city getting some of that money back — a revenue-neutral proposal.
Somers also noted that the search is still on for the driver of the vehicle that killed Lee. Based on a piece of the car found at the scene, police believe it was a dark color VW Jetta. He said the police believe the driver was a local person.
At last month’s management team meeting, residents of Rock Creek Road were up in arms over the shooting of guns into their cars and homes. No one was injured. A smaller number of the streets residents came out for Tuesday night’s meeting, seeking more information. Somers told them there is undercover work going on to find the perpetrator(s), and that the head of the Patrol Unit approved an extra patrol from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Rock Creek Road resident Debbie Prince (pictured on left, with neighbor Diane Samuels) asked, “What about a block watch?” Somers shot back, encouragingly, “What about one? I have all the information you need to get started.”
In other business, the team gave a vote of confidence to its current officers, re-electing the entire slate for another year.