New Haven Independent

Posted by: on whalley | May 14, 2008 8:32 AM

SCSU is a school of commuters. It's a state school, a glorified and inflated community college, with an awful lot of adult students coming in from across the state after working 10 hour days to take night classes. I never knew the distance they had to walk was an issue as they have shuttles between the lots. The issue was always there was NO place to park. You could drive this little route taking you past every available lot half a dozen times and get the same finger waging lot attendant and "This Lot is Full" sign at each one. Then after just sticking your car wherever hoping it doesnt get towed at 9 at night when you live an hour and a half away you stumble into class 15 minutes late feeling embarrassed until you realize you're not the only one and there are 8 or 9 of you all coming into the same class of 30 late as hell because there was no place for you park remotely near the campus.

After class at least 3 of the 9 notice their cars are not where they left them.

After 4 SCSU is all commuters and the lots haven't been able to handle those students at least since 1999 maybe even earlier.

Anybody who lives close enough to bike already does. Anybody who lives close enough to walk already does. The school will sooner or later have to make room for the commuters from Colchester, Cromwell, Waterbury, Rocky Hill, and beyond or just tell those people "hey, maybe college isn't right for you." Because the view at a park is far more important than the 40 something with three part-time jobs and 2 kids at home using the life insurance from her husbands death to go back to school and possibly get one quality full-time job freeing her up to spend more time with her own children. I'm sure what she really needs is a bike rack.

Posted by: Jonathon | May 14, 2008 10:02 AM

Whalley, the question isn't a garage on the pond or no garage at all and most of us would not put the beauty of a park before the education of our population if there weren't perfectly reasonable alternatives. Opposition to the presented preferred alternative is not an outright rejection of additional parking. The need for additional parking is recognized and not opposed on principal. It is the manner in which it is enacted that the community wishes to discuss.

The concern here is that traffic congestion, the impact on the residential neighborhoods though which one must pass to get to SCSU, and preservation of wetlands was only addressed in passing but never addressed with concrete measures. The planners did an excellent job with respect to determining how to maximize parking on campus. They did a terrible job of presenting and mitigating impacts. Why can't we have additional parking while maintaining the park? Why wouldn't SCSU want to make use of a the wonderful resource of a park on their mostly paved, urban campus? Institutions spend terrific amounts of money creating landscapes and beautifying their campus. Here SCSU has a park adjacent to their property that is invested in, improved, and maintained by their neighbors at no cost to the University itself. Why not capitalize on that asset rather than detract from it? Why can't we have adequate facilities for the University without worsening speeding, noise pollution, litter, and air quality on our residential streets? There are some excellent alternatives that can be considered. The community is full of academics, lawyers, planners, engineers, and architects. We have ideas that we would like to discuss. Why not use these resources?

All the local residents want is to be included in the planning process, not presented with preferred alternatives after the fact. This is a common best-practice in the planning community and considered essential to the planning process. The inclusion of the public and the mitigation or short and long term impacts of a plan is not just a nice idea. It is deeply codified in the American Institute of Certified Planners Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. It is an obligation to which all certified planners have subscribed, much in the same way the Hippocratic Oath binds physicians. I would encourage you to refer to the AICP code of ethics.

http://www.planning.org/ethics/conduct.html

SCSU has to recognize that they are a neighbor in a residential area and would not be met with hostility if they engaged their neighbors as opposed to their current model of planning by decree. Many of the residents in the neighborhood attend SCSU and rely on it for continuing education. Having an institution of higher learning in it's midst can be a terrific thing for a community when a partnership is present. It is the lack of partnership that has put SCSU in this position and one that we hope to rectify.

I sincerely appreciate the Independent's coverage of this story and hope that the SCSU administration and the residents of the surrounding community can engage in a meaningful dialog.

Posted by: DingDong | May 14, 2008 10:04 AM

On Whalley,

If the problem is lack of parking, and not the distance of the walk, why aren't they saying that?

Posted by: Mark Lar | May 14, 2008 11:35 AM

I'm an SCSU student. Most students drive around hovering around the closest parking lots, ignoring the satellite lots that rarely fill up. This is because they're either too lazy to take the shuttle or their late and think waiting for a garage spot will help them.

Also, I often park on the street in surrounding neighborhoods. Street parking is a good thing, it makes neighborhoods and pedestrians feel safer. There is no need for more parking at SCSU, just a need for less laziness.

Posted by: anon | May 14, 2008 9:43 PM

Gas will be $10 per gallon by next year, rendering this discussion meaningless. Nobody is going to drive to campus given the economic realities of the 21st century.

Building another $40,000 per space parking garage is a colossal mistake.

Posted by: Alek Juskevice | May 15, 2008 9:49 AM

We have been designing for the car, not the human, for almost 100 years. Highways and roads have bifurcated our cities, towns, and countryside. They have sheered neighborhoods, and isolated humanity in a steel shell. There does not seem to be a collective conciseness in the United States, and this may be one of the causes. I feel, that in the future, those cities with the best alternative forms of transportation will be the most popular. It may be inconvenient to plan ahead and maybe walk an extra mile, but this, I feel is the coming reality of our nation. The sooner we wake up to this reality, the better for us all. Investments in light rail, possibly of the type that was removed from New Haven to make way for the car, would provide a less stigmatized alternative to the bus. Perhaps the money allocated to parking lots might invest in such a system. Satellite lots on the outskirts on New Haven might collect cars, and transport people. Regardless of the solution, I feel that we, collectively, must do some forward thinking. Spending extra time walking may be a sacrifice that we can make for the greater good. It has the added benefits of being healthy and relaxing, not to mention the positive social aspects that may result from more pedestrian traffic in our great city. I feel that more parking is backward thinking, and we, as a city, and as a nation, should take this chance to look forward.
alek

Posted by: the trix rabbit | May 15, 2008 10:32 AM

Whalley, you make it seem as if the lack of new parking in a residential New Haven neighborhood is directly responsible for destroying the chances of hundreds of unfortunates who only need that little chance to get an education. The reality is that there is a significant amount of parking in the half-mile radius around SCSU during the day, and that is doubly true at 9 PM. If you don't believe me, just drive around the campus there. Additionally, the development of a completely commuter-oriented society is a major problem across the United States, and there needs to be a solution other than "everyone should have their own car." One solution is a significantly better public transportation system, utilizing rail and bus facilities. This would be a great development but is unlikely in Connecticut in the near future. Another is that SCSU devise a system to facilitate carpooling, better shuttles and utilization of other parking lots already in existence. Building 2000 new parking spaces right next to a residential neighborhood does not address any of those concerns.

Additionally, I would like to know where you get your numbers. The way you told it, at 9 PM, approximately 1/3 of an average class is late, 1/3 of those people get their cars towed, and the embarrassment that these people suffer, caused by lateness, is both completely out of their hands and destroys their future and that of their children. And that they are widows. While I would not be shocked if there have been one or two cases like that in the history of the school, it would greatly surprise me to learn that that is the story that most SCSU students have to tell.

Posted by: david streever | May 15, 2008 10:05 PM

Guys,
don't answer On Whalley. He supposedly? was leaving New Haven but apparently failed. We don't tolerate failure, here.

He's the type of guy who sees another cyclist on the ground injured & zooms by to go home & write a snarky blog post.

He's the type of guy who anonymously attacks others via the internet.

He's the type of guy who doesn't deserve a response on the internet, you dig?

Posted by: anon | May 15, 2008 11:05 PM

There would be a massive demand for bike racks if the city became more bicycle-friendly. There needs to be greenways and bike routes throughout the city, and from all surrounding towns, into New Haven. Similar to what every other civilized, industrialized country now has.

And the money all those students saved by bicycling to class, instead of driving, could pay for hundreds of new local jobs instead of being sent to Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: on whalley | May 16, 2008 8:04 AM

Don't worry Streever. You have 8 days of me left. :)

Posted by: newbie | May 16, 2008 3:26 PM

To Alek and all others interested in promoting walkable cities and smart urban growth I suggest checking out 1,000 friends of Connecticut which promotes "growing a healthy economy with choice in transportation, housing and education; and respect for farmlands, open space, natural and historic resources. Sprawling development doesn't have to continue."

You can find them at 1000friends-ct.org

Posted by: Ned | May 19, 2008 1:38 PM

There is a bike lane, on the Boulevard, beginning at Whalley, (that dumps you out onto Crescent St. - then you're left to fend for yourself - again) but you still have to ride your bike to that point - not so fun. In addition, anyone want to volunteer to ride a bike on Fitch St. or Blake St., or Whalley Ave. during the morning or evening rush? SCSU is mainly a creature of the state of CT - and it shows in the planning.