Truck Hits Woman

An accident Wednesday illustrates the continued danger of a problem intersection, charged traffic safety activists who asked the city to fix it nearly a year ago.

A woman was hit by a truck near the corner of Audubon Street and Whitney Avenue Wednesday. Police said she was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital. She’s a little bruised up, but OK.

The accident happened around noon at an intersection that Alderman Doug Hausladen and activist Erin Gustafson asked the city to make safer in May of last year.

City traffic chief Jim Travers said he’s already on the case. He said the city has been working with a consultant to come up with designs for a crosswalk and a push-button traffic signal so pedestrians can alert cars about their intention to cross.

“It has always been my desire to do something there,” Travers said. ​“It’s an important intersection. We’re looking to do something about it sometime this year.”

Hausladen agreed that now is the time to get it done.

“The big issue is that there are no crosswalks there,” said Hausladen. ​“It’s become a real problem. We have people competing with cars to cross the street. There are literally cars backing into people now.”

Hausladen didn’t see the accident happen, but Ralph, who declined to give his last name, witnessed it first-hand from the sidewalk. He was standing in front of Elm City Artists at 55 Whitney Ave. when he saw a woman come out of Subway and start to cross the street. He said she was looking toward Audubon Street as a man driving a truck began to back into a parking space.

The truck hit the woman and immediately stopped.

“He got right out of the truck to go assist her,” Ralph said. ​“But you just couldn’t say anything quick enough to warn her.”

The truck was marked Vigilone Heating and Cooling, from a company out of East Haven.

“It could have been worse,” said Sgt. Vernon Barham. He and his officers worked to direct traffic down Audubon Street as the accident cleared up.

The popular intersection is an area known for arts. Children are often in the area for after-school programs at the Educational Center for the Arts on Audubon Street.

Gustafson, who works as an assistant director for the Yale Office of International Students and Scholars, watched the aftermath of the accident from her window on Whitney Avenue.

“This is happening at lunchtime in broad daylight and it’s something I see happening almost every day,” she said. ​“Even with the police officers there and the ambulances there, there were streams of pedestrians there crossing the street.”

The intersection has come under fire before. Back in May, someone spray-painted a guerrilla crosswalk in the area, which seemed to have a noticeable impact on traffic safety. Gustafson said she saw cars slowing down for people crossing at the impromptu sidewalk.

“I think that spoke a lot about the potential for a crosswalk there,” Gustafson said.

Gustafson and Hausladen submitted a proposal in May to the city through the Complete Streets infrastructure design manual to request a raised sidewalk with a blinking light at the intersection.

The city’s Complete Streets Manual includes a project request form that anyone can use to request an improvement to car, bike or pedestrian infrastructure.

“We have been hoping for progress,” Gustafson said. Recently, she noticed that electrical boxes similar to those at other traffic lights had been installed.

“I hope that something is coming very quickly to prevent something like this happening again,” she said.

Hausladen said he hasn’t heard of anything happening with the proposal yet, but after Wednesday’s accident, he plans to check up on it.

Other Police News

Assault: Officer Miguel Aponte received a report of a domestic assault on Lamberton and Dewitt streets Tuesday night.

According to police spokesman Officer David Hartman, the woman involved said her boyfriend choked her after she asked him to reimburse her for a loan she gave him.

According to Hartman:

She told police she gave her boyfriend the money so he could reinstate his cell phone service. They had been smoking crack when he asked. She told her boyfriend Wednesday that she didn’t want to smoke anymore and that she didn’t want him spending her money on drugs.

Officers located the boyfriend and charged him with third-degree strangulation and second-degree breach of peace.

Bank Robbery: Police responded to a Citizens Bank on Forbes Avenue at 12:44 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a robbery. They were told a man had robbed the bank by passing a note to a teller demanding money.

He left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash and fled in a gray mini-van occupied by two other men. The van got on I‑95 and traveled north. New Haven and East Haven cops stopped one vehicle each. Neither were the suspect van.

For block-by-block year-to-date crime information, check the Independent’s Crime Log.