When 1,500 new apartments come to downtown and the western edge of Wooster Square, will the new people who live there drive around town? Or will they walk and bike?
The Harp administration plans to ask the state for $125,000 to start figuring out how to promote the walking and cycling alternative.
It’s all in the quest of what’s known as “T.O.D.” — transit-oriented development — aka building near train stations or bus lines, or generally to work with non-auto transportation.
Monday night the administration submitted a request to the Board of Alders for approval to apply for a $125,000 state Office of Policy and Management grant to conduct two studies: One to figure out how best to redevelop “underused” properties near the two big new housing developments approved for the Union, Chapel and Olive street areas. And one to plan for how to work with employers to coax their workers out of cars and onto bikes or shuttles or sidewalks in and around the new “Downtown Crossing” project.
The grant application includes a $15,000 city match.
The alders referred the request to the board’s City Services and Environmental Policy Committee.
Click here to read the application.
The application notes that the $400 million-plus LiveWorkLearnPlay plan for the old Coliseum site, along with housing complexes in the works at the old Comcast building on Chapel Street and on a former industrial site around the corner on Union Street, are projected to bring 1,500 new apartments to a concentrated stretch of town near the train station. Nearby, the city’s oldest factory (C. Cowles) is about to be vacated; that is one of five “key sites” that the report would examine for how to develop in a way to “support business attraction” such as storefront retail as well as “opportunities for new, properly-planned TOD projects.”
The second study concerns Downtown Crossing, the ongoing effort to fill in the Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere linking I‑95/I‑91 to the west side of town. The project is reconnecting the Hill with Downtown and paving the way for new development projects like the in-progress 100 College St. Alexion office tower as well as the upcoming LiveWorkLearnPlay project. Click here to see about how the city plans to rework the streets — part of a challenge to enable people to walk and bike safely rather than cram the streets with cars. Right now state estimates show the number of cars traveling that area during the peak morning hour rising from the current 4,600 to 6,280.
CT Rides, Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital are already taking “leading” roles in promoting alternatives to single-car commuting, the application notes. Alexion just agreed to help pay for Gateway Community College students to take buses. The study would help the city contribute more to that effort. It would include, among other parts, “up to 10 roundtable, strategic planning meetings with employers” and final zoning recommendations.
Look, I can give them some good ideas and I'll do it for the cost of a sandwich and some french fries.