New Haven Independent

Traffic-Calmers Plot Next Moves

by Melinda Tuhus | June 2, 2008 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

anstress%20voting.jpg There’s a thief at large in New Haven neighborhoods, stealing public space and even invading residents’ private domains. That thief is traffic, both volume and speed. The “TC “is gearing up to ride to the rescue.

At least that’s what doens of people in Fair Haven are hoping after taking to the streets this weekend.

TC — as in traffic calming — is a concept gaining currency as residents, cyclists, even some drivers, say they are getting fed up with the dominance of motor vehicles and all that implies for public safety and quality of life.

On Saturday, 40 people dedicated five hours to a workshop led by Dan Burden, a nationally recognized expert on traffic flow, traffic calming and sustainable community design. He served for 16 years as the Florida Department of Transportaiton’s state bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. He is now executive director of Walkable Communities, Inc.

Funds for the workshop, spearheaded by Fair Haven Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale, the city’s top TC proponent, were raised by the Chatham Square Neighborhood Association and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Then the city matched the funds for a total of $10,000.

The day began with a “walking audit,” in which Burden led the group around the neighborhood and pointed out design elements that encourage traffic speed and gridlock, rather than calming. He brought his tape measure, measuring the width of one-way streets and comparing that to the ideal width for traffic calming purposes. “They were twice as wide,” Sturgis-Pascale said. He had the group simulate a roundabout by having a small group of people walk into an intersection and hold hands.

dan%20burden.jpg Back inside in a large room of a building owned by Sereshteh Bekhrad on Front Street, Burden (pictured) told his enthusiastic audience members/participants that when motor vehicles barrel down streets, residents withdraw first from life on the street, and then even from the parts of their homes that face the street — thus “stealing” space. Through an interactive slide show, he demonstrated options such as roundabouts, narrowed lanes and curb extensions that can slow traffic down and allow people to reclaim those spaces.

He explained that “unwarranted” stop signs, put up at the request of residents by accommodating town engineers, often backfire, sending traffic deeper into residential areas in order to avoid the stop signs. He pointed out that on-street parking is a valuable asset in street calming, because it narrows the lane and slows cars down. Just painting white stripes a few feet in from the curb — even without allowing parking — can make a big difference, Burden said.

Burden noted the statistics that have become part of New Haven traffic calmers’ mantra: When struck by a motor vehicle going 40 miles per hour, only 17 percent of pedestrians will survive. At 30 mph, the survival rate is 50 percent; at 20 mph, it’s 95 percent.

After the slide show, participants brainstormed the key problems they saw with traffic in the neighborhood, and one word kept coming up — speed. (Pictured at the top of the story: Anstress Farwell participating in a vote.)

erin%20closeup.jpg “We just have to slow the cars down,” Sturges-Pascale (pictured) said. “Really, the speed is what kills people. It makes people feel threatened. It’s the key component here, and that’s really what traffic calming is- - it’s slowing the speeds.” She added, “Let’s use more paint; let’s put planters in the street,” as two low-cost approaches to traffic-calming.

Traffic design around the area’s schools was of particular concern. People said they’d like to encourage children to walk to school, but not until it’s safe to do so. Some of Burden’s slides demonstrated unsafe street design around schools, and then safer alternatives, using elements of traffic calming.

Burden said community buy-in is key. “It’s so important that if we’re going to have plans to help benefit a neighborhood, it’s the neighbors who are in charge of the design, who’ll defend the plan because they built it - it’s their plan.”

Burden will return on June 14 to present a final report, based on participants’ input. “It will give us a platform” for action, Sturges-Pascale said. “These changes can be expensive, but there are low-cost solutions.” Like paint.

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Comments

Posted by: DingDong | June 2, 2008 8:32 AM

Sturgis-Pascale for mayor!

Posted by: anon | June 2, 2008 8:56 AM

Speeding is worse than stealing from people's property and personal space, it also involves putting other people's lives at serious risk. I can't understand why people feel entitled to it. TC is desperately needed in our city. It isn't that expensive and it works 100% of the time. There is an article about one of Erin's related efforts here:

http://blog.tstc.org/2008/05/29/groups-circulate-petition-for-safer-new-haven-streets/

Posted by: DingDong | June 2, 2008 9:16 AM

From today's NY Times on "minor" traffic "accidents"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/nyregion/thecity/01acci.html?ref=thecity

Posted by: Nan | June 2, 2008 9:27 AM

Will the traffic calming measures also help discourage another city scourge, kids and young adults illegally speeding around the neighborhoods on noisy scooters? Police don't seem to be able to stop the riders because they can't catch them. Because these people continuously break laws with impunity endangering city citizen's lives and ears, the ever-increasing numbers of loudly speeding scooter riders create an aura of lawlessness in our city. Dan Burden and Erin Sturges-Pascale, do you have any ideas on how to deal with this problem?

Posted by: anon | June 2, 2008 10:52 AM

Nan, traffic calming would free up police resources for other problems like the one you mention. There will always be a small percentage of people causing trouble, but unless our police are freed up from all the time they are currently spending dealing with problems that result from the fact that our streets are horribly designed, we probably won't be able to address issues like that.

Posted by: Nan | June 2, 2008 1:55 PM

ANON, thanks for your thoughtful response. I'm all in favor of supporting the police. I know that we will soon have new recruits coming on board, for which I am grateful. However, the police themselves say that their hands are tied in terms of stopping the illegal scooter riders because the riders go way too fast and get a thrill out of the chase. New Haven tolerates too much law breaking, whether it is running red lights, riding noisy scooters, or blasting loud music or motors. I look forward to the traffic calming as a first step. But let's not stop there.

Posted by: C | June 2, 2008 2:44 PM

Calming the speeding is a noble goal. Educating pedestrians is equally laudable. I am so tired of driving by - particularly but not exclusively - college/university campuses and dodging JAYWALKERS with my car. I respect and STOP for pedestrians crossing at the corners in the zebra striped crosswalks. It is unreasonable for students and others to cross mid-block, darting out from behind parked cars or other obstructions. I do not want to hit any one at ANY speed - I don't care if it's only 5 mph. Pedestrians must behave responsibly just as much as motorists.

Posted by: anon | June 2, 2008 5:42 PM

If there are so many jaywalkers, it probably means that there are so many pedestrians. The correct response is to slow to 15 or 20MPH (slower if you are driving an SUV) so that if you do hit someone, you probably won't kill them. Keep in mind that many of the jaywalkers are children, youth, disabled, people not familiar with the area or just people having a bad day.

Please extend the same courtesy to others that you would want extended to you.

Similarly, if driving on a neighborhood street, go slower than you think you should. There may be a young child walking out from next to one of the parked cars.

You may arrive to your destination a few seconds later if you do this. But the alternative (hitting and seriously injuring someone) is a billion times worse.

Posted by: -fairhavener- | June 2, 2008 9:23 PM

Is that some sort of traffic calming shrine behind Dan Burden in that photograph?

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | June 3, 2008 5:55 AM

ANON

Sorry, but the correct response is to teach people not to walk into traffic at all. That's how you prepare someone for the real world and avoid becoming an outcome of natural selection. How great would it be to unrealistically slow all traffic down in New Haven and then get your child killed when they blindly walk into traffic when visiting NYC, thinking that the entire driving public acts the same?

Posted by: king james V | June 3, 2008 10:00 AM

Can we get some traffic calming on Central Ave - especially on weekends?

Posted by: anon | June 3, 2008 3:33 PM

Fedup,

Saying that the correct response in this situation is to "teach everyone not to get hit" is like saying that the correct response to a nuclear weapon going off in the middle of Manhattan is to "teach everyone not to look at the flash, and to make sure they have a Hummer waiting for them at their front door so they can drive upstate."

Unfortunately, traffic accidents kill and injure many more people than nuclear weapons - just in the United States alone, resulting in at least 4,000,000 emergency room visits, 350,000 hospital admissions and 45,000 fatalities every year. The vast majority of these are completely preventable. We have been brainwashed by the auto companies into thinking that they aren't.

We need to immediately begin redesigning our streets for people, economic development and neighborhood vitality, not for moving traffic through them at 60 miles per hour. Would you want someone speeding through YOUR living room at 25MPH?

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | June 3, 2008 6:38 PM

ANON

Please stop with the mushroom clouds and living room highway of death analogy! The city streets have no similarity to Hiroshima or private living quarters. And if you think that New Haven is going to redesign streets to make them safer, then I have an investment opportunity in South Africa to tell you about. With a 14 million dollar shortfall in the budget, and more surprises next year, you'll be lucky to have the streets swept, let alone re-engineered.

KISS. Keep it simple!

Posted by: anon | June 4, 2008 7:55 AM

Fedup, how about an immediate $5 increase in the gas tax to pay for it? The true social, production and environmental cost of gasoline is about $20-25 per gallon; so if our country stopped subsidizing gas so much, our society would be much wealthier and happier (e.g., safer streets that didn't kill 120 Americans every single day, slower traffic meaning more front yards for people to hang out and spend time with their neighbors, a much stronger economy, etc). Currently, gas is pricey, but most of that money gets shipped directly to other countries, which means our country spirals further and further into debt even as roads crumble. Increase the gas tax, while providing alternate means of transit, and much more of that money will end up staying here instead of going to Dubai. Individuals can use it on educational expenses, housing, etc., while governments can use it on new facilities or health care.

You wonder why apartments in New York and London average $1 million and up? It's because so much more of their money is staying within the local economy, in part because they aren't buying as much gas per capita. Meanwhile, places like Akron, Ohio have houses worth $30,000 or less because about half of all the money circulating in their economy gets sent to support 6-star hotels in Dubai or dictators in Nigeria or Sudan.

If you don't increase the gas tax, one of the most effective ways to calm traffic is almost free: painting some narrow stripes on the road, putting out concrete planters in local intersections, and asking the police to give out more traffic tickets. Maybe some of the surplus 10mpg Hummers can be stripped down and repurposed as planters.

Do we want to subsidize dictators, ignore our $10,000,000,000,000 national debt and look the other way while 4 million Americans continue to get injured on our streets each year, or do we want to improve our economy, make our front yards worth using again and care for our children?

Posted by: Concerned | June 4, 2008 9:06 AM

Way to go Anon! Fedup, your responses are completely nonsensical.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | June 8, 2008 6:27 AM

Concerned,

No, yours and ANON's view of the way to solve problems is nonsensical as well as naive and unrealistic.

Traffic-Calmers Plot Next Moves

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