New Haven Independent

Posted by: Daniel Casey | April 17, 2009 11:27 AM

on this issue--DeStefano Fail. Alder Sturgis-Pascale should be put on point with this issue and a major push needs to come from city hall & the police force. it is unacceptable to walk the streets afraid you might get hit, to drive in fear, or with reckless abandon.

Posted by: Heightz | April 17, 2009 11:41 AM

Erin amazes me. If she wants to champion an issue like traffic infrastructure OK so be it. I have no objections to that. BUT our ward is divided into 2 parts which are homeowners in the Chatham, Front street area whos issues are traffic calming.

Other area of our ward are Ferry Street, Atwater, and I think some of Grand, and side streets off of Ferry with people who are renters AND who are minorities. We are dealing with CRIME. Where is our help? I am convinced Erin only knows whats going on in her inner bubble, traffic calming, chatham square, and front thats it!

Posted by: Lets work together | April 17, 2009 11:53 AM

Heightz,

This is why I think we in fair haven have a good team of alders fighting for us. We have a collective group who advocate for different priorities which in the bigger picture ensures we are "looked after" in all areas. You have Sturgis-Pascale who works very close with Chatham Square and who is a advocate for the environment and traffic calming, we have Rhodeen who is chair of the public safety committee, Rodriguez who fights for a lot of quality of life concerns and education issues, and Castro who is.. well I guess Castro.

All of them who attend the management team meeting and work with each other.

Posted by: Our Town | April 17, 2009 11:54 AM

I'm astonished that ANON hasn't yet responded with one of his six paragraph treatises extolling the virtues of traffic calming with bogus statistics, fabricated facts and irrelevant links telling us for the 400th time that it will increase my property values, decrease murders and leave one with a general and lasting sense of euphoria. Leave the streets alone, enforce the laws, teach people to respect one another in the schools, inspect vehicles for defects. People and machines cause the problems. Mostly people. Do not make everyone pay for the activity of a few.

Posted by: lance | April 17, 2009 12:02 PM

for an additional $100 contribution, you can richard gere the parrot.

Posted by: norton street | April 17, 2009 12:07 PM

I am not the biggest fan of "traffic calming".
I think it has been set aside in its own category when really its just a part of good urbanism. we need to work on designing meaningful places and space in our city and with that the traffic will naturally slow down. to just want to slow the traffic by changing all the sidewalks and roads is kind of a waste of resources because if people have v6 engines, theyre gunna use 'em, if all you want to accomplish is slowing down cars they try to get GM to build cars that only go 30 mph max.
the issue is broader than poorly designed streets, its poorly designed urban space. long or tall linear buildings only encourage people to live out of scale since because they subconsciously see out built world as out of scale by driving huge cars and going extremely fast. surface parking lots only reinforce the car as king of human life. small sidewalks diminish the pedestrian's role as most important part of the urban lifestyle. the entire city needs to be reworked to reflect an urban environment instead of a suburban parking lot, commuting route and center for lego architecture.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 12:32 PM

Our town, do you think that the APHA is a "bogus" or "irrelevant" organization? I suggest you read through these letters and documents for some interesting facts.

http://www.apha.org/advocacy/priorities/issues/TransportationIssues.htm

Unfortunately, people do not cause the problems. The systems cause the problems.

Transportation systems are exactly the same as food safety or air traffic. If you don't have a system in place to ensure people's safety, people are going to keep getting killed from E-coli or pilot errors. We treat airplane and food deaths as unacceptable, yet when someone is hit in front of the Yale campus and paralyzed, it is not covered by a single media source and the government takes no action.

Our Town, based on your posts about driving I would surmise that you have about a one in fifty chance of dying in a traffic collision, and an even higher chance of being seriously injured. Each time someone is paralyzed (like tens of thousands of people are per year), it costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. Road deaths, of which there were more than 100 per day last year, cost Americans billions of dollars as well. Wouldn't spending a little more money on road paint or planters be worth it if it prevented some of those costly deaths and injuries?

Also, with all due respect to the Mayor and others, traffic calming is not necessarily expensive. That is a misconception. In Holland, citizens went out and blockaded the streets once they realized that traffic was killing their towns and destroying their health and property values, and increasing crime because people were reluctant to walk around their neighborhoods. They ripped up the sidewalks in front of their houses for building materials. That traffic calming was free, and it did wonders: the Netherlands is far ahead of the U.S. (not to mention New Haven) in just about every single measure of health, happiness, or social equity.

I hope that Chatham Square and other neighborhoods will adopt these measures if they don't get an immediate and committed response from government. And they should start this summer. The lives of their children is worth it.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 12:48 PM

Heightz, how do you propose to solve the serious crime issues on Bright Street, Atwater and Ferry? I know that over the past few years, the Board of Aldermen has offered up and voted on numerous proposals targeted to help do this. What have you done lately? What are your proposals?

Also, do you recognize that there are different ways to approach the issue? Simply adding more police could be a good idea, but people disagree about how effective it really is. Should the police go after prostitutes or should they be trying to chase down juveniles? Or maybe making more traffic violation stops to seize illegal weapons, illegal and stolen vehicles, and drugs (something that traffic safety advocates have advocated aggressively across the city)?

Some people think that measures such as bringing in economic development (which only happens if property values are high and people want to live there), getting more people to walk around their neighborhoods and have "eyes on the street" (which is easier if cars aren't screeching down your street at 50MPH every minute of the day, like they are in much of New Haven), or providing jobs within the community (which can only exist if people want to walk to stores in the neighborhood) are more effective than adding another 40 or 50 police officers.

Hopefully you will get involved and help set these policies. Please share your ideas!

Posted by: DAFeder | April 17, 2009 12:52 PM

Lance, you're a class act.

David

Posted by: Market St. | April 17, 2009 2:30 PM

I do agree with Heightz, there are more important issues in fair haven than the traffic.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 2:31 PM

Norton Street, you have a good point. Urban design/enclosure/activity and road design are both important considerations.

However, most of New Haven's beautiful existing residential neighborhoods are simply never going to be rebuilt to look like Jane Jacobs' Hudson Street in New York (and interestingly, even Hudson Street, as bustling as it was already, was just very recently completely rebuilt to narrow the street, extend sidewalks so elderly people could actually walk there, add bike lanes, and calm traffic!).

To make our urban places livable and healthy, we need to focus on street designs -- just like what London, New York, Copenhagen, and Cambridge and hundreds of other cities have been doing.

The question is simple. Do New Haveners want to live with cars careening through their neighborhoods at 50MPH for the next 100 years, or do they want to take action?

Typically, cities (like Hudson Street in NYC) pay for road improvements because they know that land values will double or triple as a result. But if these things politically can't be accomplished in New Haven without raising taxes, then it is time for the city to reconsider its policies and allow them to be done in cheaper ways, like what Holland did in the 1960s and 1970s.

Posted by: fairhavendoc | April 17, 2009 2:48 PM

"In all my years in public life," the mayor reflected, "I have never seen so much citizen activism."

Yes, Mr. Mayor. It is encouraging, isn't it? But don't take this as a complement. Perhaps this is because your ineffectiveness is reaching new heights and the citizens are taking matters into their own hands.

Posted by: Our Town | April 17, 2009 3:33 PM

I don't want to get into a back and forth over this, but, yes there are rules and regulations for air travel, and yet planes crash and people die, and yes there are rules and regulations for food processing, and yet people die of food related problems. There are rules and regulations for driving, and yet people die. Pretty much for the same reasons, people don't follow the rules and machines fail from time to time. Citing a national figure of 100 traffic deaths per day is not relevant in a discussion of NEW HAVEN. Statistically, many more people die of gunshots than traffic crashes in New Haven, and that has been the case for many years. Both are bad.

And, no, I do not think paint or planters will change anything except to make the impatient less reasonable.

Posted by: Streever | April 17, 2009 3:53 PM

Anon DID respond with 6 paragraphs! What a hoot! I think they can't help themselves.

Regardless, they are right that traffic calming does contribute to all of those things. I mean come on: Cambridge Mass vs Boston Mass? I don't think there is a more clear example anywhere on earth. Same demo, same region, same weather, same people. Totally different.

The thing that should be pointed out, is that the Mayor is completely wrong on "price". Sorry Mayor. It's ESPECIALLY disappointing though, because we've had multiple consultants give us cheap methods for traffic-calming.

I've seen people at City Hall roll their eyes at these methods, but heck, we paid these people to come here. They are leaders in their fields, and they've all advocated the same thing.

How many times do I have to hear, "A barrel with a plant in it is a bump-out" before City Hall hears it? What are we talking, 40 bucks?

What about timing the lights properly? How much can that possibly really cost, to change the light timing?

You know how much a crosswalk costs to paint? .20 per foot for a 4" stripe. .30 per foot for a 6" stripe.

I'm not guessing those: that's from City Hall.

You know why it's too expensive? because we've made a social & political choice to not do right by walkers & the handicapped. We even have sidewalks without curb-cuts, no kidding.

We don't even bother to remove sheets of ice off our curb-cuts in the winter, long after the snow has melted. How is that for a "screw you" to anyone in a wheelchair, or a walker, or with a limp, or who is elderly, or.... etc etc. (Or even to a healthy young person--I had a fall which left me with multiple scars on the city's icy curb-cuts in East Rock this winter)

It's disappointing that we'd make this poor choice, and the mayor would then back it up by claiming it's "too expensive". Trust me, if myself & anyone else injured by the failure to clear the curb-cuts sued, it would suddenly dawn on everyone why it's NOT too expensive.

What if the handicapped sued when they couldn't use the sidewalks & had to use their wheelchairs in the streets?

What if the families of children killed in New Haven by automobiles out of control sued?

Crosswalks that don't work, crosswalk paint that's just been paved over (all up Edwards), multiple t-intersections where pedestrians can legally cross but police scream at them because there is no crosswalk painted there....

it's a liability nightmare, it's a public health nightmare, and we as a city need to re-assess our priorities if we thik any of it is even VAGUELY okay to justify. We've not done well in the past.

Certainly things are improving, but I'm not happy to hear misinformation being shared. Own up to the failing to do the job right, and acknowledge that you've done well by hiring Mike Piscitelli instead of some sleaze with no background in the field to fix it.

Then, give him the money 7 resources to fix this stuff. The guy iis smart enough & talented enough to take care of it with areasonable budget. (maybe we can reform Public Works while we're at it, too, and get someone who actually talks to citizens to run it)

Posted by: DEZ | April 17, 2009 3:54 PM

Hear, hear Fair Haven Doc. Last nights meeting was successful in that the room was chock full of people tired of the status quo. to be perfectly honest, obtuse as I may be, I had no idea this was a DeStefano house party. Never the less, it was a great place to network with others who are willing to create real change by becoming involved. Believe me, traffic calming is not all Erin is about. The shooting on Clinton Avenue happened right outside Lee's house only moments before I arrived (late) to the "party". It could have been any of us mugged a gunpoint on a seemingly quiet street. Are you sick of the status quo as well? Stop blogging and get involved. Yes the issues of Bright Street are not the issues of Front Street, but each citizen must champion their own issue. To champion them all would mean a mayoral run, and that's another issue entirely. Frankly it sucks that we pay outrageous taxes AND have to clean up our environment of varying types of filth. But if not us than who? I would much rather be involved and fail than to sit back and rage incessantly at an issue that I physically have not tried to address. On the other hand, if you are trying to keep your pinkie finger from becoming a vestigial digit, then by all means sit on your a$$ and blog away wildly using lots of colons and semi-colons.

Posted by: Streever | April 17, 2009 3:54 PM

heightz:
FYI, Erin ran on a traffic-calming platform. I don't know why you think that's a problem now. Clearly she won the election, so I guess people gave her the mandate to do what she very openly said she'd do? She didn't run on a crime solving platform, so I don't know why you'd expect her to pull a 180 on what she said she'd do, and she is doing.

Posted by: norton street | April 17, 2009 4:07 PM

just to clear it up
when i said "we have to rebuild the entire city" i meant the places/buildings designed after about 1950. rebuilding the city to a time when there was no massive traffic congestion (at least in the form of vehicles). so the old neighborhoods and blocks dont really need that because they were designed currently do begin with. i wasnt trying to imply that front street should be demolished and rebuilt more densely. when we have more lively sidewalks then the streets calm down.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 4:52 PM

"Statistically, many more people die of gunshots than traffic crashes in New Haven, and that has been the case for many years."

Are you sure about that figure, Our Town? There were at least 12 traffic fatalities in New Haven in 2008, not to mention many more hundreds of people injured. I am not sure about 2008, but looking at data from several recent years prior to that, there were fewer than 12 gunshot murders in New Haven during some years. Of the ones there were, the majority occurred among a relatively limited segment of the population, i.e., male, repeat offenders and drug users within a certain age range. Meanwhile, traffic victims tended to be children and the elderly, and the vast majority had no previous criminal records.

Obviously, the numbers are disturbing either way, and there isn't even a point debating them since we are talking about health, economics, pollution, retention of homeowners, tax dollars and quality of life more than mortality statistics.

But the bottom line is that, ironically, your statistics are not even close to being accurate. A more valid comment would be that both are serious issues - not that only one is important and therefore, you feel entitled to drive at 50MPH through my neighborhood (as many drivers do, because the streets are designed for it).

As ANON described in more detail above, the two issues are both matters of public safety and public health, and must be addressed in equal measure. Actually, many of the strategies that work for one issue - such as designing streets which actually encourage people to walk around their neighborhoods - also work for the other.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 4:54 PM

I agree with that, Streever. And thank you for responding with more paragraphs than I did!

Posted by: Lee | April 17, 2009 5:03 PM

Heightsz,
The meeting covered a lot more than just traffic calming; unfortunately this did not come across in the report. There was significant time devoted to other issues including crime.

One of the attendees, a woman who lives on Castle Street, spoke quite eloquently about the problems and offered suggestions as to what she thinks needs to be done. But she is not just talking she is organizing her neighbors for action, connecting with residents across the city and through these action she is being a role model for her son. I suggest that you join me in supporting her by attending the conversation that she is hosting or by committing to some other action that will make a difference in your neighborhood and that your neighbors can support.

Let me know if you are interested and I will put you in contact with people in your neighborhood who are committed to addressing crime issues in your neighborhood. If there isn't a group, I'll put you in contact with someone who can help you start one.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Posted by: Streever | April 17, 2009 5:30 PM

Apologies, my numbers are slightly off on painting: that's for bike lanes. Cross walks are 3.00/foot.

(and I realize I should clarify it has to be done in bulk: it costs about 15k to do this "on the spot", which isn't something I'd ever advocate: we have way too many bad intersections to do 1 at a time!)

This is definitely doable. It's a political & social choice that we haven't made, and it's disingenuous to say we aren't able to: we've chosen not to.

Posted by: Josh Smith | April 17, 2009 7:30 PM

The mayor said traffic-calming "is going to be expensive". He didn't say it "would be expensive". Is this a glimmer of hope I see? I sure hope so, because we can't let the city crumble and fall apart anymore. It's got to be turned into a place where people want to be, and a place in which people can walk around, cycle around, drive around, or take a (way more efficient and convenient than it is now) mass transit system. And not just downtown, because there's more to the Elm City than just the downtown area.

And the only reason why it is going to be expensive is because we should have been doing this for 40-50 years now already, and now we have to play catch-up. I think if there was a survey of New Haven residents about whether we should do traffic-calming to reduce traffic speeds on city streets, the answer would be an overwhelming YES.

Posted by: anon | April 17, 2009 8:40 PM

Streever, what is the cost of "bar style" or "zebra" crosswalks versus the standard lines? There are studies showing that the bar style crosswalks are much more visible and more effective, so I was wondering why we are still using lines on so many intersections. Is there a big cost difference?

Posted by: TrueBlueCT | April 18, 2009 10:37 PM

In terms of Public Safety, I worry as much about being the victim of a reckless driver as I do about being the victim of gun violence or being mugged.

How many police officers do we task to curbing outrageous driving behaviors?

Not enough as far as I'm concerned.

Walking around downtown I see egregious stuff daily, and 99.5% of the time the dangerous driver gets away with it.

Honestly, if you're a Yale student, you have a much greater chance of getting killed in a car vs. pedistrian accident than you do as the result of crime.

Yet look at how much money Yale spends for police safety, as compared to the next-to-nothing they spend on pedestrian safety.

It's short-sighted, and the non-action of the City and Yale are going to cost more unnecessary deaths.

"Hey Mayor, if you like that we're a walking city, please do more to make pedestrians safe. And you too President Levin."

Posted by: mike | April 21, 2009 1:17 PM

New Haven drivers are some of the worst in the country. It seems to me that expanding traffic enforcement could generate millions of dollars for the city. Putting in speed bumps and circles around the city is catering to bad drivers if you ask me. Policing bad drivers and cracking down on speeders is the only solution. tickets and fines.

if people need to drive so bad they will slow down if there is a cop taking radar every few blocks.

Posted by: Jon Doe | May 2, 2009 12:25 AM

I live on Atwater street and see all this crazy drivers on my street all the time. So I fully sport any action the NHPD would do to stop this, but I have a question why isn't the the same driver are driven around at all hours of the day and night with the loud music veing included with the safe streets program they are the same drivers.

I'll bet if NHPD started doing there jobs by stoping these cars they would find druges and guns in a few of these cars.

This didn't start over night it due to the NHPD not doing anything for years about this and these kids know they can get away with so they continue to do it.

maybe if the city charged huge fines for this and started ticketing these guy word would get out.