Pedestrian Struck; Hit-&-Run Driver Sought

The Prospect/Trumbull bridge was designed as a pedestrian death trap in order to accommodate higher traffic and truck volumes. Look at how narrow those sidewalks are and how much room is provided for vehicles to drive/turn through at high speeds. The road and sidewalks can even ice over in winter which makes things even worse.

I would hope that if the city designs another intersection like this in the future, it will look at international/national best practices, instead of using whatever truck stop design manual they used for this. The design of this bridge is totally unacceptable for a city environment.

I hope the pedestrian makes a speedy and complete recovery, but injuries like these are often ignored kind of like how we don't like to talk about Long COVID. Even when people survive the event, the injuries can easily have lifelong consequences.

I wish there were a way to slow drivers down without having them interact with armed and volatile police officers.

"it appears the vehicle is at fault for the accident" is such a weird sentence. The "vehicle" isn't at fault, it's the driver, who made the decision to operate their vehicle in a dangerous manner. Second, if fault has been determined, it's not an "accident"! That's like saying the driver made an "oopsie-daisy". Let's start using grown-up words in official communications please. I wish a speedy recovery to yet another victim of traffic violence.

SparkJames,

There is, and we know how to do it. Engineer the streets to prioritize walking, cycling and active transportation instead of designing them for high-speed car traffic. It's not rocket science--or perhaps more accurately, like rocket science, the fundamental principles have been worked out and in use for decades.

Like anonymous said above, that stretch of road, among many, is basically set up for high speeds.

If the city-wide speed limit is 25 miles/hour then there's almost no reason for a driver to be able to 'safely' (from their own perspective, not from that of more vulnerable users) exceed that speed.

The intersection of Prospect St, Trumbull St and Canal St is a dangerous one. If you're coming from Trumbull or Canal there is no left turn signal for Prospect St for the Canal St vehicles and Trumbull St drivers. Because of the rise of those streets up to the intersection with Prospect St you can't see what is in the intersection until you're in the middle of it, and you can't see the opposite direction oncoming drivers to see if it's safe to take the left turn until you're in the middle of the intersection. Prospect St has a very steep long hill which levels out at that intersection. As a result water from rain, melting snow and ice puddle there and leave behind debris, small stones and other slippery rubble. Trumbull St has the traffic from the I-91 highway exit going through there to Yale, north/west downtown, and cutting over to the North West side of town. It is the main pedestrian path between most of the main Yale campus to the university health center, the newer dorms, the Yale Whale ice rink, Science Hill and the Peabody Museum.
This intersection should have left turn signals on Canal and Trumbull and should have something to slow down the downhill traffic on Prospect St and to redirect the runoff to the curbs and keep it from flowing into the intersection. I'm not sure how to best protect the pedestrians at this intersection because of the three streets all sloping up or down to meet at that intersection makes raised crosswalks impossible at that location. Probably the measures to slow the downhill traffic from Prospect and creating left turn lights from Canal and Trumbull would have less vehicles rushing through that intersection too rapidly or blindly which would make it safer for pedestrians.

It is truly astishing to read these comments. Same old comments. The engineers are out to kill us. How ignorant some are. This bridge was built for one reason and one reason only, to continue the Farmington Canal Trail, a WALKING and CYCLING facility. If it were truly a roadway project, the bridge would have been ripped out, and a regulat intersection constructed at grade. But in an effort to provide an continuous walking bike path, the roadway was second tiered and priority was given to the Farmington Canal. There were many obstacles to this effort, including unknown ulilities and historic constructions and convoluted geometry due to alignment of the trail and the existing street system not to mention the adjacent historic cementery at a different elevation. And the one thing that everyone here never understands, money. The funding for these projects is mostly federal and some state, a very little local.There are strings with this money, standards to be met. Someone built a pedestrian death trap, rubbish. Everytime a driver does something wrong, it's the governments fault? There are defects in the system. But there are far more defects in the users.

I agree with Salty! Robert Moses, you need to lighten up. We should be more concerned for the young woman & not trying to point fingers. Liberals do that kind of crap. Hopefully law enforcement will find this despicable person & punish him/her for their cowardice. Make the culprit accountable!!

Been contacting the Yale alder and City Hall since 2016 about the death that is Trumbull Street, from Prospect to the highway entrance at Orange.

Trumbull and Whitney where it marries Church is the worst most treacherous intersection in the city at rush hours. No replies from City Hall.

Posted here about it a dozen times. Because this "issue" garners no ribbon cuttings or woke sexy press, to do the nitty gritty of smart design for a "smart city" all that ever offered was a "willingness to have a conversation about different personal pedestrian perspectives" that, of course, never transpired.

This city is so woke and willing "to have overdue conversations" rather than get an actual crew out there to study and rectify issues.

And by the way, since we as a city w/ YNHH "trust the science" will the bike share on Temple St across from the Omni be put back since we know now that the virus doesn't transmit well outdoors nor survive on or transmit via surfaces? Or, did the virus cancel that small green idea forever?

WE ARE PLEADING WITH CITY HALL TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT TRUMBULL STREET FROM PROSPECT TO ORANGE! HELLO?!

PS

Yes, to second Heather, as I have stated in numerous posts here, Trumbull street essentially functions as a runway for cars racing to, and on and off the 91,95 ramp, which bifurcates a COLLEGE CAMPUS.

So the city has a TRAFFIC HIGHWAY with defective (and dumb) pedestrian signals cut right through a UNIVERSITY after the new dorms were built!

But the real concern was what to name the dorms! True!

Salty:

Sadly, it is only a matter of time before people are killed as a direct result of the way this roadway was designed.

Please, travel the rest of the world and see how they create safe infrastructure for pedestrians before you try to use engineering jargon to justify such an incredible failure. The fact that it had to bridge over a historic landmark is no excuse.

We can fix this intersection before more people are suffer lifelong injuries or are killed. Yale just invested about $1,000,000,000 dollars to add 1,000 undergraduate students (not all of whom are even 18 years old yet) in housing right across the street, so I think they can find a few hundred thousand dollars to fix this. And we can do better as others around the city are rebuilt.

We have allowed drivers to normalize their bad driving habits of not stopping and ticketing them when they run a red light because, "it was only red for a second", make a left on red, do a slow roll through a stop sign, drive 40 in a 25 mph zone, pass stopped school buses. In densely populated cities it's a prescription for tragedy. "Book'em Danno."

The pedestrian had the green crosswalk signal (actually there is no such thing, the pedestrian walks when the walk light is white), It was the vehicle operater's fault per the preliminary report. All the comments concerning the "dangers" of the location ignore the facts...it was driver error. NO AMOUNT OF YALE, FEDERAL, STATE, or LOCAL MONEY can stop a driver from going through a red light. I know you are going through your endless European design, narrow lanes, cobblestones, 10 MPH routine, but there is no evidence that any design alternatives would have avoided this crash. And to H.C. above, all the approaches to this intersection are on an upgrade to get over the Farmington Trail, and the "downhill" approach on Prospect Street, which is actually uphill, has two speed humps prior to Trumbull Street. And as to Yale spending money to fix roadway problems, they do, wisely. But you seem to think everything is a roadway problem. Not everyone agrees.

I've walked and drove through this intersection. It sucks for pedestrians and drivers. Actually all the intersections with Trumbull suck because it is a highway off ramp through busy traffic streets and busy pedestrian crossings. I really do think that left turn signals for Canal and Trumbull for the Prospect intersection would help prevent accidents. I know that coming into downtown from Prospect at that intersection is a tough one. So we have two almost blind approaches with no left turn signals and a steep hill making cars having to ride their brakes all the way down the hill to that intersection.
You can't prevent idiots running a traffic sign or light, but you can design streets that encourage good driver behavior, good cyclist behavior and protect pedestrians and cyclists. You can also have speed/red light cameras at traffic lights to punish bad driver behavior. You can outlaw right turn on red lights for pedestrian safety. You can also direct water runoff to funnel debris away from intersections and to the curb, reducing slip hazards for all.
And as Yale's campus is impacted by many of the downtown traffic hazards, they can be part of the solution for the good of residents, employees, students and visitors.
I think where the highway off and on ramps are presenting traffic, bicycle and pedestrian hazards, and where state controlled roads are presenting hazards, we have to demand the State of CT take responsibility to create safer streets for vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles. It can no longer be just about moving vehicles as rapidly and smoothly in and out of the city, it has to take into account pedestrian and bicycle and disability safety.

"I know you are going through your endless European design, narrow lanes, cobblestones, 10 MPH routine, but there is no evidence that any design alternatives would have avoided this crash"

This makes little sense when you look at the real evidence, Salty. Many European cities that are larger than New Haven now regularly have zero pedestrian fatalities, plus a very low injury rate. Meanwhile, hundreds of pedestrians died or were severely injured in New Haven last year alone.

Anon, I do not wish to be in a back and forth with you, but your ongoing "hyperbole" needs to be tamed. "Designed as a pedestrian death trap", "hundreds of pedestrians died or were severely injured in New Haven last year alone" is irresponsible. Your points would would be more palitable if they were actually factual.