Paul Bass Photos
• A new road!
• Where an old one used to be.
• This one has a cycletrack, as well.
• Alder Carmen Rodriguez (pictured above): “This is a big deal!”
Well, a new long block of Columbus Avenue.
Paul Bass Photos
You can walk down it. Or along a night-lit sidewalk beside it.
You can bike down it. You have a choice of a bike lane in the street. Or a separate two-way cycletrack to the side.
And by June 1 you’ll be able to drive down it. Lots of people will drive down it. Because now they’ll have a more direct route to and from the train station and Church Street/Church Street South.
There actually used to be a road there. More than a half-century ago. It was part of U.S. Route 1. Then urban renewal came along. The road vanished.
Now the street is back, with big plans brewing nearby.
“Fifty-eight years closed. This is a big deal!” Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez (pictured) proclaimed at an opening gathering Wednesday drawing public and civic officials …
… cyclists ready to claim the terrain …
… neighbors, including Alyssa Carr (standing at back right in photo) and her class from the Boys & Girls Club learning hub …
… and (from left in photo) Leta Highsmith, Samantha Haiken, and Michelle Sandata of the New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation.
Wednesday’s gathering was originally planned as an hours-long celebratory block party. Plans changed after a firefighter was killed and another placed in a coma fighting an early-morning fire in another part of town. So the party was quashed out of respect, the gathering shortened and dialed down. Percussionist Michael Mills and his trio did lead the crowd in a “heartbeat” chant in honor of the firefighters.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn and transit chief Doug Hausladen (pictured at the gathering) started planning the new road last summer. The idea was, as part of the Downtown Crossing project, to stitch parts of the Hill and train station and downtown back together again.
City project engineer Christopher Flanagan (pictured) was able to put together the plans in just three weeks, according to Zinn. The city got started on construction in the fall, took the winter off, then completed it this month. In addition to the road and sidewalk and two-way cycletrack, crews installed granite curbs, state-of-the-art LED pedestrian streetlights, granite curbs. In the process, they unearthed some concrete chunks from the original road that was built over. UI still needs to finish wiring for the road to open to car traffic. The whole job cost $650,000 in state and city funding, Zinn said.
State Department of Transportation Commissioner Joseph Giuletti (pictured) was on hand Wednesday. He said he’s especially pleased about the cyclist and pedestrian features of the new road; it fits into his goal of boosting greener multi-modal urban transportation (including upcoming electric buses). Giuletti recalled growing up near the block at the intersection of Sea, Greenwich, and the Boulevard, and visiting his aunts on Edgar Street.
Zinn and Hausladen said the new road also helps set the stage for upcoming projects. One involves connecting the cycletrack across the soon-to-open road connection between South Orange and Orange Street (across the former Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere) and over toward Water Street.
Another involves building a new mixed-use complex on the grave of the demolished Church Street South housing development. Above is what the land looks like now, on the border of the new one-block road.
Plans for the former Church Street South land are on hold, but not forgotten, according to city economic development chief Mike Piscitelli (pictured). The city lost out on two attempts to obtain a federal “choice neighborhoods” grant to support building anew on the lot. Northland Investment Corp., which owns the property, is holding conversations with potential partners and with neighbors about what form a new project should take, while everyone waits to see what funding priorities emerge from the Biden administration, Piscitelli said.