Detail of the redesign.
After weeks of negotiations, the Rt. 34 re-do plan has been redone, with raised intersections, traffic islands, curb bump-outs, and other pedestrian and bike-friendly elements that Alderman Justin Elicker said make him “medium happy.”
East Rock’s Alderman Elicker was one of the lead legislators on a proposed resolution submitted to the Board of Aldermen back in August, calling for the city to re-think its design for the planned overhaul of the Rt. 34 corridor. The city plans to fill in the Rt. 34 Connector and make over the area with new buildings and two “urban boulevards” as part of a $140 million project called “Downtown Crossing.”
Signers of the August proposal—including 11 aldermen, one former alderman turned state rep, and an alderman-elect — called on the city to make the project more amenable to walkers and cyclists and less focused on the needs of motorists.
Contentious public hearings on the proposal ensued, as well as behind-the-scenes negotiations, resulting in a new design agreed to last week.
Thursday night, aldermen voted unanimously to approve the a substitute resolution that closely resembled the original. Elicker said that hardly mattered now, as the proposal’s intended effect had already been realized: It pushed the city to improve the plan.
Elicker said the substitute resolution changed the language in several ways. “The city was concerned about the two-lane prescription. They made it more general language and added a list of things that were requested that were incorporated into the design,” Elicker said. The word “dangerous” was also removed, for fear that state and federal funding sources would get nervous, Elicker said.
Click here to read the original resolution. Click here to read the substitute.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Elicker (pictured) said the new design — which is still subject to state approval — doesn’t include all the changes for which he and his cycling and pedestrian-advocate allies had hoped. Plans still call for five lanes of traffic, for example. Click here to see the mark-up of the latest design.
But the design now includes narrower lanes and traffic islands, both of which will narrow the distances pedestrians have to traverse to cross those five lanes and slow traffic. Lanes will be 10 feet wide instead of 11 or 12 feet. There will be raised intersections where College and Church meet North Frontage. Bike lanes and bike boxes will be put in on Church.
Fuss & O’Neill
A recent iteration of Downtown Crossing.
“The goal of this resolution was never to pass the resolution,” Elicker told his colleagues as the item was introduced for a vote. “The goal was to improve the project.”
He hailed the new traffic-calming measures in the latest design — bump-outs, raised crosswalks, bike lanes, pedestrian islands.
He took issue with Hill Alderwoman Dolores Colon, who had said that it was “unrealistic” to try to limit the result to two lanes, plus a turning lane.
More and more people are moving to cities to be closer to work, to walk to places, to avoid the high price of gas, Elicker said. If that trend continues, the city will need to be more walkable and it will not need to be designed only for cars, he said. “We have to be visionaries.”
The proposal passed unanimously without further discussion.
“I’m medium happy” with the result, Elicker said after the meeting. “I’m really happy about the changes that they made,” he said. “I think that they could do more.”
Acting city spokesperson Elizabeth Benton offered this comment: “Thursday’s unanimous vote came after hours of conversations between aldermen, city staff, and transportation safety advocates. Downtown Crossing is a better project today thanks to dozens of public meetings and hours of public input that have gone into this effort, not just surrounding this resolution, but dating back to the first original ideas and plans for the area. City staff and aldermen worked tirelessly to incorporate feedback from numerous city residents and experts. The Board of Aldermen’s unanimous affirmation of the broad public support for this project is a direct result of those efforts.”