As he stood at Union Station, Mike Piscitelli made a plea to the state: Help us make this into New Haven’s Grand Central.
Piscitelli (pictured), New Haven’s Director of the Department of Transportation, Traffic, and Parking, made his case at a meeting of the State Public Transportation Commission Thursday at New Haven’s train station on Union Avenue.
He described to the commissioners a vision of the station as a multi-use building with restaurants, a fitness center, and maybe even a small hotel. He asked the commission for a letter of support for the plan, which is based on a 2008 study by a team of consultants.
The State Public Transportation Commission is charged with collecting information and opinions on transit from the public and reporting them to the governor.
Chairman Tom Cheeseman (pictured) said that it would consider Piscitelli’s request for a letter of support at the commission’s November meeting. Cheeseman and his board also heard a plea on Thursday for allowing more bikes on trains.
Currently, New Haven’s Union Station is simply a transit hub with some office space, most of which is occupied by the state Department of Transportation and other railroad-agency offices.
“We filled the station up with us,” Piscitelli said.
The expansion plans would transform the landmark building into a multi-use facility incorporating restaurants, a fitness center, dry cleaners, and perhaps a small hotel and other businesses serving commuters. The city calls it a “transit-oriented development”; click here and here for background.
Piscitelli cited Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Grand Central in New York as models for what New Haven wants to do.
He said that New Haven continues to grow even during the current down economy, making the city a good candidate for an expanded train station. “We are in a top 20 market for growing through recession. There was no drop off in hotel occupancy rates while the [drop off] rate for the nation was 20 percent,” he said.
Ginny Kozlowski, head of the New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau, confirmed that New Haven “is doing better than comparable cities.” A survey showed a slight drop in hotel occupancy rates through July for 2009 over 2008, but that also included Waterbury.
Lobbying for other improvements, Piscitelli spoke about the need to connect the station with downtown New Haven.
He mentioned the shuttle that now runs between the rail station and the Green, with stops in between. The shuttle could be a great way to get people from the station to downtown, but more needs to be done, he said.
There is now no relationship between the station and downtown,” he said. The route between the station and downtown “may be comfortable to walk, but nobody does it. That is our challenge,” he said.
Bikes On Trains
At Thursday’s meeting, commissioners also heard from New Canaan cycling advocate Richard Stowe (pictured), who asked the board to help make more room for bikes on all Metro-North Commuter Railroad trains.
Stowe said that he is pleased with plans to put more bike racks on new M‑8 rail cars. Click here for a video tour of those new cars, scheduled to hit the rails soon.
But Stowe is not pleased about Metro-North’s policy of not allowing bikes on peak trains. He said he wrote three weeks ago to state transportation chief Joseph F. Marie complaining about the practice. He suggested that the decision whether to let bikes on should be left to conductors.
He told of the plight of a man who commutes with a bicycle from Darien into New York. Should he want to ride the train, he has to wait until 8:35 p.m. to board a train that will allow him to bring his bike on board. That won’t get him to Darien until 9:27, he said. “That really cuts into the time he has with his family,” Stowe said.
Stowe also urged more use be made of New Haven’s commuter train station on State Street, which is not used on weekends. He said the South Norwalk station was a catalyst for growth of a restaurant and entertainment district that sprung up around the station and suggested the State Street station may serve a similar role in New Haven.
"The route between the station and downtown Òmay be comfortable to walk" - if you feel invincible, one route goes past a <a href="http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=union ave. new haven, ct&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.684144,74.970703&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Union Ave, New Haven, Connecticut 06519&ll=41.296824,-72.928576&spn=0.004135,0.009152&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.296913,-72.928593&panoid=mHwfAriv1oeEYlb6tKTqTA&cbp=12,58.38,,0,3.52" rel="nofollow">public housing project</a> and the other route goes under a <a href="http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=union ave. new haven, ct&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.684144,74.970703&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Union Ave, New Haven, Connecticut 06519&ll=41.301346,-72.924381&spn=0.004135,0.009152&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.30126,-72.924379&panoid=9yG7YSE4FAMZcEwdrV2nJw&cbp=12,162.22,,0,17.77" rel="nofollow">dark underpass into a pedestrian wasteland</a>. Neither route is comfortable to walk.