The project manager in charge of widening Whalley Avenue doesn’t see traffic circles, bike lanes or a narrower road in the picture.
The manager, Richard Zborek of the state Department of Transportation (DOT), may hear some of those ideas when he comes to Edgewood School Thursday evening. He’ll hear Westville’s concerns about his $13 million plan to widen Whalley Avenue by four feet, into a 48-foot-wide, four-lane home for greater car traffic between the 63/69 interchange and Emerson Street.
The state has begun relocating utilities along Whalley to make way for construction on the widening plan, which was 30 years in the making.
At the 11th hour, it has run into a new wave of traffic-calming activism in New Haven. That movement came to Westville — and ran into this Whalley widening project — after a driver struck and killed 11-year-old pedestrian Gabrielle Lee last month at the Davis Street intersection.
Neighbors called for Whalley to accommodate more pedestrians and cyclists rather than more fast-moving cars. They’d also like the state to narrow, rather than widen, the road with more support for alternatives to driving.
Their state representative and state senator, Pat Dillon and Toni Harp, got the DOT to agree to the meeting with neighbors this Thursday to discuss the plans. The meeting runs from 5 – 8 p.m. at the Edgewood School cafeteria. (Read more about it here.)
The neighbors’ overall message, according to point person Christopher Heitmann, a planner himself: “Move Whalley Ave. towards being a road that is supportive of people and places, one that is safe to walk and bike along, pleasant to take the bus on, and that encourages local economic development. We do not believe any of these things will happen — in fact it will become less so in all regards — if the road is built as currently planned.”
The neighbors look to sit with DOT officials to discuss the plan rather than present specific demands or a set of agreed-upon alternatives. In anticipation of this week’s meeting, neighbors held a community workshop (pictured at the top of the story) last Thursday at Congregation Beth-El Keser Israel. Read about that here. (Disclosure: I’m married to one of the neighbors who organized that workshop.)
A “State Highway”
Individual neighbors did come up with specific suggestions at least week’s meeting, though they weren’t voted on or chosen as official requests. DOT’s Zbrozek was informed of some of these ideas in a conversation this week — and dismissed them.
“This is a state highway. It’s not a city street,” Zbrozek said. “We have to design accordingly.”
Without roundabouts, for instance.
Those traffic circles take the place of traffic lights. They slow traffic, but can also actually keep it moving more steadily. You rarely if ever encounter them in Connecticut.
Zbrozek said he likes the idea of roundabouts. DOT has a new “roundabout committee.” It’s testing some out — but in rural or small-town areas, not in cities; and on single-lane roads.
In Europe, communities have put roundabouts on roads with double-lane traffic, Zbrozek said. But not here. “I don’t want to discount the roundabout. [But] I wouldn’t say I’m open to a roundabout in this location. It would use up too much” space. Also, he questioned whether the road grade makes visibility problematic.
“The roundabout can be disruptive,” he said. “This is a very commercialized area. Somebody has to give up land.”
Similarly, Zbrozek said he likes the idea of bike lanes. Just not on Whalley. Again, there’s no room, he said. The first stretch of the eight-tenth-mile section of Whalley being widened, starting at the Route 63/69 interchange, handles 27,800 cars a day, he said; the second stretch, to Dayton, 23,700.
The issue, again, is space, according to Zbrozek: The stretch of Whalley will have four lanes, two in each direction, when the DOT is through. Each lane is 11 feet wide. That leaves shoulders of only two feet on each side — too small for bike lanes.
3‑Lane Solution?
Of course, that presupposes having four lanes. Many of the Westville traffic-calmers reject that idea as a way of simply encouraging more car traffic rather than making room for bikes and pedestrians. One alternate scenario would create a three-lane road for the whole stretch: one lane in each direction, and a shared middle lane for left turns.
Zbrozek rejected that idea out of hand. He said the road simply has too much car traffic.
He added that one of the motivating forces for the project is the high number of accidents already on that stretch of Whalley: an average of 110 a year over the past decade. The biggest causes of those accidents are failure to grant the right away and following too closely, he said. A shared middle lane would create yet another major cause of accidents, he predicted: “There are inherent accidents that occur with that type of system. They can be head on. There’s got to be cooperation between motorists.”
This week and in a previous interview, Zbrozek stressed that he feels he and fellow planners took traffic-calming and pedestrians into consideration in molding this plan. For instance, the DOT is putting in new walk signals along the .8‑mile strip. Including at the fatal Davis-Whalley intersection. Right now walkers crossing with a walk light still have to contend with cars driving onto Whalley at the cross street. Also, the plan calls for some new on-street parking. Click here to read an earlier story in which he elaborates on the plan’s merits.
“If you plan for cars and traffic, you’ll get cars and traffic; but if you plan for people and places, you’ll get people and places,” responded Heitmann (pictured) of the Westville traffic-calming group.
He wrote in an email that he could “formulate ‘technical’ responses” to Zbrozek’s arguments. However, he said he and the group prefer to wait until Thursday night’s meeting. They want “to sit down with DOT, discuss the coalition’s goals for the project and then see where and how we can balance those with the DOT’s stated goals.”