New Haven Independent

Traffic and parking chief Mike Piscitelli (center in photo), City Engineer Dick Miller (right), Public Works Director John Prokop, police and other officials were seen huddling between Canal Dock Road and the Vietnam Memorial on Long Wharf Drive. That’s where Misael Ruiz, a 23-year-old spectator, was killed in a hit and run by one of the drag racers at 1:15 a.m. Sunday.

Piscitelli said that four or five immediate if temporary solutions were being considered and that the city would announce the precise steps to be taken later in the day.

But by day’s end, city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city was still looking at various concepts to improve the situation on Long Wharf Drive. “We’re looking,” she added, “at what we’ve done elsewhere. No decision on a single concept has been arrived at yet.” Saying that the drag racing problem impacts numerous areas of the city, she added, “We have to be strategic in the use of resources.”

Longer term, said Miller, “The whole of Long Wharf Drive is going to be turned into a park.” He was referring to the city’s recommendation to the State Department of Transportation (DOT) whose I-95 redo is moving, glacially, with the Q Bridge reconstruction set to be finished by 2014. Or 2016. “Part of our recommendation to DOT,” he said, “is that the drive be a park. That’ll solve the drag racing, but not, of course, immediately.”

The police department recently stepped up late-night patrols of drag-racing spots. In a sad turn of events, cops had broken up a drag race on Long Wharf two hours before the weekend’s accident — but were called to a different drag-racing spot at the time of the fatal race.

In the meantime, leaders of New Haven’s growing “safe streets” traffic-calming movement weighed in on the implications of the weekend death and the prevalence of drag racing on city streets.

“It was really only a matter of time before this would happen,” Fair Haven Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale said of the death in an email correspondence . “Connecticut should explore adopting a measure similar to that of California that gives law enforcement the right to confiscate and crush cars that are involved in drag racing.”

“Racers should be required to attend the crushing to press upon them the seriousness of their recklessness,” she added.

According to Mark Abraham, who heads the Safe Streeets Coalition, the problem is citywide, not only in the two or three areas — Long Wharf, River Street, and Route 80 — where it’s concentrated. “Almost all neighborhoods have this problem,” he said.

His solution?

“Look, if the city would heed, enforce the general recommendations of [his group’s Safe Streets] petition, the speed limit, and all the regulations, that would make the difference. It’s established that the racers come, many of them, from out of town. If New Haven were known as a place where regulations are enforced, where there’s more concern for enforcement than exists now, it would no longer be a destination for this kind of activity.”

Abraham was surprised at the size of the crowd — some 100 spectators — at the deadly Long Wharf crash.

At the nearby City Point Bubble and Squeak Laundromat, which sits at Howard Avenue and Fifth Street, an easy entry to the north end of Long Wharf Drive, a father and son (who preferred not to be identified or photographed) said they knew all about how crowds of 100 or more appear so fast.

“This is the culprit,” the father said, holding up his cell phone. “These guys call or text each other and they say, ‘In an hour, meet you at Long Wharf,’ or wherever! And they’re all from out of town! Oh yeah, and they bet too. They bet their cars.”

He said in his experience racing was not a problem on his immediate blocks of Howard, on the east side of I-95, While his son would never be allowed to attend these impromptu races, he said, he knew of neighborhood kids who do go over at midnight or later.

The police department’s traffic unit has been beefed up since the arrival of Police Chief James Lewis. However, in a recent meeting at the Fair Haven Management team, the acting head of that unit, Lt. Joe Witkowski, said the department appeared to be having trouble scheduling enough manpower for the late night shift, during which most of the drag racing criminality occurs.

As the traffic-calmers continued to gather, another ongoing gathering was occurring on Long Wharf Drive, where passers-by such as Joe McDermott continued to stop at a makeshift memorial to Misael Ruiz, the 23-year-old killed in the weekend accident.

McDermott said he simply had gotten off I-95 on his way home to Mansfield, Mass., to get a hot dog and an orange soda. He ate them quietly while looking at the dozens of candles and the chalked messages at his feet. One read: “We love u Nigga, [signed] Diany, Chock, Luis, Kiana, Jaideli.”

The memorial, fast fading, stood in silent contrast to the line of food trucks doing business as usual across Long Wharf Drive.

Mayoral spokeswoman Mayorga said that officials would be continuing discussions over the next days. It was her expectation that the city would be able to announce its official steps to respond to drag racing on Long Wharf and elsewhere by the end of the week.