Make Way For New Bike Lanes

A newly-striped bike lane has appeared on Chapel Street for cyclists to use as they seek to dodge downtown car traffic — and, a few blocks to the west in the Dwight neighborhood … could it be? … the long-delayed Edgewood Cycletrack has finally begun construction (!).

The new downtown bike lane is on the north side of Chapel Street, heading west from Temple Street to College Street.

This reporter took an inaugural ride of the newly-striped, unprotected bike lane with Downtown Alder Eli Sabin.

“I bike around downtown a lot,” said the current Ward 1, aspiring Ward 7 alder.

“We’ve had dozens of pedestrians and cyclists killed in the city” in recent years, Sabin said. ​“We need to make sure we do everything we can to make getting around the city as safe as possible. Biking is an affordable and active way to get around the city.”

This lane is a small thing, he said. But it’s a step — or a wheel, or a pedal — in the right direction.

City Transportation, Traffic & Parking (TTP) Director Doug Hausladen said that the new Chapel Street bike lane was approved at a recent city Traffic Authority meeting and was laid out and installed by his department last week.

Up next, he said, is an already-approved contraflow bike lane on Wall Street between College and Orange. He said his department is also working with the city engineering and public works departments and with the city’s Resource Allocation Committee to extend the current, protected Crescent Street cycletrack to Southern Connecticut State University.

Sabin added that he’s also working with Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison on a new bike lane on York Street that would stretch across both of their wards.

Edgewood Cycletrack Breaks Ground

Meanwhile, a half-mile to the west, construction has begun on the long-delayed, and highly-anticipated, Edgewood Avenue cycletrack.

That’s the planned new 2.1‑mile protected bicycle path that will stretch from Forest Road in Westville to Park Street in Dwight.

City staff have been promoting the cycletrack since March 2016, when they first presented the idea at a Westville neighborhood meeting. After several more community meetings, the city earned City Plan Commission approval for the project in June 2017. That was followed by a final sign off from the city’s traffic commissioners in August 2017. The project then hit delay after delay, largely related to what city officials described as planning out and finding contractors for complicated signal work.

Nearly four years later, city-hired contractor Lior Excavating is now busy at work digging up the sidewalk at the northeast corner of Edgewood Avenue and Dwight Street.

Lior contstruction workers Dajohn Stevenson and John Ramirez (pictured) said they’re installing all new sidewalks, a new granite curbs, two new ADA-accessible ramps, and new cross signals.

The project itself will stretch across 11 different intersections on the west side of town, and will see the addition of new sidewalks, reconfigured intersections, and new bicycle-only traffic signals.

This will be more than just a protected two-way track for bicycles, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said. ​“It’s pedestrian improvements, signal improvements, new walk signals, changing the geometry on a weird intersection.”

He said that the cycletrack will be built from east to west.