Allan Appel Photos
Officer Jackson ticketing Jenna Arater as part of pilot program.
Who knew that it has for years been illegal to cross on the diagonal at an intersection, even if pedestrian signals give you the all-clear to go?
This reporter didn’t know that.
Nor did the nine downtown pedestrians who each received a ticket for the infraction within 60 minutes. Ouch! To the tune of $92.
The usual crowd crossing illegally on the diagonal at Chapel and Church
The nine citations were issued by a team of four traffic patrol officers lead by Sgt. Pedro Colon from 4 – 5 p.m. hour at the Church and Chapel Street intersection on a bitter cold Thursday late afternoon.
Sgt. Colon’s crew will periodically return during rush hour in coming weeks — so mind your pedestrian manners.
The officers are participating in an enforcement and education pilot project sponsored by Watch For Me CT, a nonprofit promoting pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist safety, through the Connecticut State Department of Transportation. (Click here for a background story on the program.)
Colon said that a $15,000 grant under the program is enabling the police department’s traffic division to deploy eight four-hour four-officer shifts on Thursday and Friday afternoons through Jan. 17. They are to be stationed on the corners of heavily trafficked intersections like Church and Chapel and in the coming weeks on Chapel and Temple, Chapel and High.
Their mission: to pass out flyers on the basic state laws drivers, cyclists, and especially pedestrians need to follow, or face enforcement.
(Update: Police Chief Otoniel Reyes Friday, in response to this article, ordered officers on this specific details to hand out warnings instead of tickets to pedestrians. Read more about that here.)
Sgt. Pedro Colon at a car window.
In the first week of the pilot period, Colon reported, 123 formal warnings were written, 102 for pedestrians crossing at angles or at non-crosswalk situations; five for cyclists; and 16 for motorists. Thursday was the first day police started handing out tickets. (Note: And earlier version of the story in correctly identified those warnings as tickets.)
The fines are stiff: Including $92 for a pedestrian who fails to obey signals and use the crosswalk correctly. And for drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk.
“We could have stopped way many more,” Colon said of the first week’s effort, but during the writing of one ticket, a half dozen violators walked by, he added.
“There’s a complete disregard for the signals, ” Colon said. He put the blame as much on law enforcement as the public. “We really do want to get the word out there. Frankly, it’s something we as police don’t enforce. How can we expect people to obey if we don’t enforce?”
Officer Paul Cavalier explaining the ticket to one diagonal crosser, who said she will appeal.
Citing the high number of pedestrians killed by cars this year, he said, “When you have the same number of [fatal] motor vehicle accidents as homicides, that’s a serious problem that has to be addressed.”
The pilot program is one way of doing that.
As Colon deployed his troops during rush hour at the corners of the Chapel and Church this past Thursday afternoon, he motioned to the intersection awash in people crossing at angles, crossing when the light was red, and stepping off and crossing well outside of an intersection. They did that right from the bus stop in front of the CVS Pharmacy and quick-stepping, among parked and passing cars, to the Green.
That’s what Maria Santiago did. She had gotten off work in North Haven at 3:45. The 215 bus let her off with her friend in front of the pharmacy. She was tired, she said, and it was cold. So she crossed over directly from the stop without going to the corner to use the crosswalk.
Officer Paul Cavalier, stationed by the fountain on the Green’s northwestern corner, spotted her and walked up to her when she stepped onto the curb. He gave her a flyer, explained the violation, and asked her for her ID. While he went into his vehicle to write up the violation, she stood, shuffling her feet to stay warm against the cold. She wasn’t happy about the stop. It came as a surprise. But all she wanted to do, she said, was for the officer to “hurry up because it’s cold.”
Jonathan Stewart, who was ticketed for crossing on the diagonal, told Cavalier, “It’s not fair. I’ve been crossing like this for years.” The young man said his mother lives across the street, right on the corner. He was visiting her, as he always does, and suddenly he had a ticket. “It never was a problem. This is Christmas time. Why aren’t they doing it next year?”
This woman was so upset, she threw up her wrists and cried, “Arrest me! Arrest me!”
Jenna Arater, a nurse at rehab facilities, had just come from a doctor’s appointment and also crossed at the diagonal from the southeast to the northwest corner. Officer Jason Jackson of the traffic division met her when she stepped up on the curb and gave her the bad news. She gave him an earful as he wrote the ticket. “It’s very unfair, without a warning,” she said, and much more.
Jackson, who rides a motorcycle for the police department and knows the traffic court well, calmed her down. “On the back of the ticket,” he said, she could plead not guilty instead of sending in the $92. At the court date she can explain to the magistrate her position: that sudden enforcement is not fair.
Jackson said in his experience the traffic court judge won’t eliminate a fine, but well may reduce it. “If you don’t yell at him,” he added.
Arater was mollified. So was Allan Benoit, also ticketed for diagonal crossing. He immediately called his parole officer, who told him to pay the ticket, or some of it, and not to worry, it was only an infraction— it wouldn’t get him into parole trouble.
Another ticketed crosser, Victoria Darden, said she always walks outside of intersections because she finds intersections, with all the fast-turning cars ignoring the lights, even less safe. When she heard she’d have to pay $92 for the infraction, or appeal, she grew upset. “That’s crazy,” she complained. “That’s too much money.”
And yet there it was, when Officer Cavalier brought out her ticket and explained what was to be done. He also handed her back her ID, which he had asked from her, as he did with each person ticketed.
When he left, she shared with the press an opinion no one else had expressed: “They just want to look at your ID so they can check to see if there are warrants.”
Sgt. Colon said he expected people to be angry, in part because of the out-of-the-blue arrival of the enforcement. He said he plans to put in a call to the personnel at traffic court to let them know there may be an influx of appeals.
He said he thinks public education on a continuing basis is key, but the enforcement has its role to play. “If the fear of infraction is the price for safety, I’ll take that any time,” he said.
Colon’s officers prepared for the pilot with eight hours of training at the New Britain police academy, on the state’s pertaining statutes. They will take a break in the days after the Christmas holiday, he said. When they resume, they’ll reposition, at Chapel and Temple and Chapel and College. On those Thursday/Friday shifts, they will hand out only the flyers, no tickets.
Colon acknowledged that it is obviously harder to catch drivers in violations, but that the pilot’s aim is equally to educate and enforce motorist correct behavior as it is for cyclists and pedestrians.
Officer Jackson said fatal motor vehicle collisions often stem more from pedestrian behavior — darting out in front of traffic, appearing suddenly from between parked cars — than from driver behavior.
Colon said he’d like to see this focus continue after the pilot program ends. “It’s something we desperately need, so people can feel they are safe when they are in New Haven.”