“Complete Streets” Dubbed Incomplete

Nine years after its launch, the city’s Complete Streets process needs a complete overhaul if making the Elm City’s roadways safer for pedestrians and cyclists is ever going to happen this century, in the view of safe-streets advocates.

The creation of a Complete Streets policy and its accompanying manual for the city were heralded when it went into effect back in 2010. The state used New Haven’s policy as a model for its own guide for creating streets that are more convenient and safe for all users.

But nine years later, New Haveners testifying at a recent Board of Alders hearing said they’re still taking their lives into their hands every time they ride a bike or attempt to cross an intersection on foot, particularly at places like where York Street crosses South Frontage and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Downtown Alder Abigail Roth said she spent time at the York Street and Frontage Road intersection on three different days last August and observed 156 red light runners. She, along with Alders Richard Furlow, who has fought for more enforcement near Mauro-Sheridan School, and Steve Winter requested the hearing, which took place this past Tuesday night before the Board of Alders Public Safety Committee.

Michael Lemuel, founder of the American Patriot Cycling Services, told the committee that he works with fellow disabled veterans to help them get started cycling again. New Haven is the corridor where they access the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.

“I’m doing a lot to teach them but I need them to have access to safe infrastructure,” he said.

He and others said the city needs to better utilize the process that was supposed to make the design of the city’s streets safer — the Complete Streets process. They also said police must enforce the state ​“vulnerable users” law that was supposed to protect cyclists and pedestrians (click here and here to read about how it hasn’t), and the state should allow for a red light traffic enforcement program so that technology can help personnel strapped communities like New Haven with enforcement.

Neil Olinski, a traffic engineer who lives in New Haven, suggested the city get back to the basic tenets of Complete Streets, which called for making roadway-design improvements coincide with planned projects like repaving and restriping.

“This is a natural opportunity to restripe the street as a more of a ​‘complete street’ at little, if any, extra cost by possibly adding bicycle lanes, shortening pedestrian crossings, removing extra/unnecessary vehicle lanes, narrowing vehicle lanes to remain, and so on,” Olinski said. ​“We should not automatically restripe the prior lane lines but use this opportunity to improve safety through design changes.”

Olinski reminded alders that the Complete Streets process is about inexpensive modification of streets to achieve the goals of traffic safety through road design.

Rob Rocke, a board member of Elm City Cycling, noted that many of the activists who backed the passage of Complete Streets did so with the hope that it would make streets ​“safer and more equitable.”

“Yes, there has been good progress,” he said. ​“But some of the same issues remain.”

Rocke said the problems that remain include speed limits that increase the risk of serious injury and fatality for cyclists and pedestrians and the ongoing lack of ​“a robust network of protected bike lanes.” Though he noted that the city secured and created the state’s first separated bike lane on Long Wharf Drive, the Edgewood Avenue cycletrack and the protected bike lane across Tomlinson Bridge have failed to materialize on schedule. He also was among those who testified to the need for more traffic enforcement and suggested that red light traffic cameras might be the way to go.

“Ten years on, I think it’s time for us to revisit New Haven’s Complete Streets mandate and celebrate what it has accomplished and to figure out where it has fallen short,” Rocke said.

Doug Hausladen, the city’s head of transportation, traffic, and parking, said after the meeting that it was a fair assessment of the state of the Complete Streets process and the need for better coordination. (Read here about a previous effort to step up Complete Streets.)

Contrary to popular opinion, New Haven police officers do give out tickets for speeding, red light running and cell phone use while driving, according to Sgt. Pedro Colon. He told alders that the four-year average for traffic citations is 11,035. 

In 2018, officers gave out the least amount of tickets — 9,435 to be exact — of those four years. Colon attribution the reduction to a combination of enforcement and street engineering that provided more speed humps to slow traffic and more signage.

Colon said he had worked near the infamous York underpass and has given as many as 50 tickets in just four or five hours. But he also noted that pedestrians are often walking dangerously in the area, which is near Yale-New Haven Hospital. Yale University Police Chief Ronnell Higgins said that the university and hospital community are working to educate their people about not being on their phones when they cross the street. They also support the efforts of the city’s police department.

“Our collective effort is how we get things done,” he said.

Lt. Sean Maher noted that officers can give out more tickets but they have no control over what happens at traffic court where an appointed magistrate judge adjudicates such matters.

He said he has witnessed a judge reduce the fine of a ticket simply because a person said they weren’t talking on their cell phone when they were pulled over and cited for a traffic violation.