Thomas MacMillan Photo
Slattery (right) with Chapel Street neighbors Peg Sanders (left) and Janet Barese.
Cars are rolling slowly these days on a rough, freshly-milled Central Avenue. The current Westville alderman and an aldermanic hopeful are working to see that traffic stays slow once the street is re-paved.
Mike Slattery, one of two Democrats running for alderman in Westville’s Ward 25, convened a small press conference Friday morning at the corner of Central and Edgewood to talk about neighborhood efforts to gather input on how to redesign Central Avenue.
The event was the second campaign-tinged event in two days in New Haven to focus on traffic-calming. (Click here to read about the other.) The Westville event also raised the question of whether New Haven is following through on promises made and required in the city’s new “Complete Streets” law.
The Westville artery is in the midst of a repaving job. It’s already been milled down to a rough roadbed, with utility access points painted bright orange. Its current state is enough to slow traffic on what can be a speedy road.
Slattery has developed a new survey he plans to circulate to Central Avenue neighbors to will collect opinions on what, if any, traffic-calming measures should be installed as part of the new Central Avenue. The information will then be packaged into a Project Request Form in the new Complete Streets infrastructure design manual.
Adam Marchand, Slattery’s opponent in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary, agreed that neighbors are concerned about speeding cars on Central Avenue and said he supports efforts to slow them down.
Friday’s event came one day after police found two smashed cars just a few blocks away early in the morning on Yale Avenue. A teen was lying in critical condition next to one of the wrecked vehicles.
Slattery said he’s working on the data-gathering project with incumbent Alderman Greg Dildine, who’s stepping down at the end of this year, and Mark Abraham, the head of the New Haven Safe Streets Coalition. Abraham started the discussion with a posting on SeeClickFix.
Alderman Dildine (left) and Mary Sternbach.
Dildine, who has endorsed Slattery to succeed him, said community input is an integral part of the process of redoing any city street. It’s enshrined in the Complete Streets Manual. Dildine pointed out the page that requires that the city confer with “community members and stakeholders.”
“That’s what we’re calling for here,” Dildine said. He said he thinks the community was not contacted for input because of the short construction and funding season.
“The work underway on Central Avenue is not a street redesign or Complete Streets project; rather it is a simple mill and pave road maintenance/repair project,” said city spokesman Adam Joseph. “The city is dedicated to designing Complete Streets and looks forward to working with neighborhoods across the City to improve pedestrian, motorist and cyclist safety through thoughtful street design.”
DIldine acknowledged that with work already underway, the window for community input is closing. “I don’t think it’s too late,” Dildine said.
He said a “chicane” could be put in pretty easily. That’s a traffic-calming measure that inserts a slight turn into the middle of a straightaway, to slow traffic. It could be done on Central Avenue, for instance by switching the side of the street cars park on mid-block. Central Avenue currently has parking on one side of the street and one lane of traffic in either direction.
The street could also see bump-outs at corners, reducing the distance that pedestrians have to cross and causing drivers to slow down, Dildine said.
“‘Road diet’ is the theme here,” Dildine said, referring to various measures to narrow the street.
Another possibility would be to not paint in a new yellow line on the center of the street. A central line can lead to higher driving speeds, Dildine and Slattery said.
Options such as these are included on Slattery’s survey, which he said he hopes to put up online. He said he’d like to create surveys for surrounding streets in Westville, so that road designers have feedback on file when they go to re-do a street.
“We’ve been talking to a lot of people in Central Avenue, and folks are very concerned about the speed and volume of traffic in the street,” said Marchand. He called the current work “an opportunity to see how we can re-engineer the street.”
“We’ve got to have the new street be more pedestrian-friendly,” he said. People are “very concerned about the accident on Yale Avenue, he said. “This is a big issue on a lot of people’s radars. It’s something the next alderman will have to take a leadership role on.”
Mary Sternbach, who lives on Central Avenue, showed up for Friday’s gathering. Despite all the talk of traffic-calming, she said she’s not interested in speed humps or chicanes and she does want a stripe on the road.
“Right now, I just want it paved,” she said. “I drive slow enough as it is.”
Adam Joseph is a nice guy, but he misses the boat on the actual wording of the Complete Streets policy. The Complete Streets policy refers to ALL new or extensive road work--it is not that the city can assign certain streets to be "Complete Streets" but that ALL major repairs should go through that process.
If it was as Adam describes, then we would have no need for a Complete Streets policy. Rather, every project is supposed to be approached with a complete streets mindset.
Adam is a great guy, and it is unfortunate he is in a position where he must "explain away" failings of the city government. What a shame that our city missed the boat on the policy they helped craft.