nothin Streetcar-Plus Transit Study Gets The OK | New Haven Independent

Streetcar-Plus Transit Study Gets The OK

Thomas MacMillan Photo

Perez: Community has a say.

The third time proved to be the charm as lawmakers voted to accept $760,000 in federal money to study how to improve getting around New Haven.

The vote took place Wednesday night at a City Hall meeting of the Board of Alders.

The alders voted to accept the $760,000 grant to conduct a two-year study of how to improve city transit, from buses to trains to a potential trolley.

The city almost didn’t get the grant. The offer for the grant was to expire Sept. 30. Twice alders turned it down, when opponents charged the former DeStefano administration designed it to focus just on creating a potentially expensive trolley or streetcar primarily to serve downtown and East Rock, ignoring less wealthy areas of the city. The alders (then called aldermen”) had voted down accepting the federal money and creating a requisite local match for the study once in 2011 and again in 2012. The new Harp Administration redrew the proposal this year to try again working with alders to broaden the scope.

This time, the application for the grant expanded the study’s proposed breadth to the entire city, and proposed outcomes to any form of transportation. It also set up a way for neighborhood people to weigh in during the process.

So when Board of Alders President Jorge Perez asked Wednesday night for further discussion about the motion to accept the grant, not a single alder spoke up.

The motion to move forward with the study and add $90,680 in city money— which, along with $100,000 from the state Department of Transportation (DOT), makes up the 20 percent needed local match — passed unanimously.

The motion included an amendment creating an advisory committee for the study consisting of members of each community management team from across the city. City transit czar Doug Hausladen, who had voted in favor of the study twice previously as an alder, also led efforts to solicit citywide input about transportation before undertaking the study so the proposal would include more than a few select wards.

After the meeting, various alders congratulated Hausladen on the vote’s outcome, including downtown Alder Abby Roth, whose ward has a heavy concentration of public transportation options. Hausladen said it was heartwarming” to receive unanimous support and confidence from Mayor Toni Harp and the Board of Alders.

The Advisory Amendment

An urban trolley remains one of numerous options to be studied.

The chair of the alders’ City Services and Environmental Policy Committee, Sal DeCola, read the amendment out loud in the Aldermanic Chambers before the vote. The amendment stated that No funds (local, state, or federal) may be used for this purpose until after an advisory committee with members of the community management teams has been established.”

Perez, who led the opposition against the original streetcar study proposal in 2011, said a chief concern in the past about accepting the grant was that the study did not include people across the city throughout the process.

With one volunteer from each of the 12 community management teams, Perez said, the advisory committee will work as a sounding board for the team completing the study. Since they live across the city, the community members will know which streets should not be one-way, for example, and can provide input.

When asked whether he would have voted in favor of accepting the grant had the amendment not been added, Perez said no.

I wanted [the plan] to have an advisory board that was representative of the entire city,” Perez said. I wanted to have input from different parts of the city along with the so-called professionals and experts.”

Moving Forward, Mode TBD

New Haveners travel primarily by car, according to a DOT survey conducted last month, with about 43 percent of 236 respondents reporting using an automobile and about 28 percent public transportation. (Click here to read a story about concerns over the local CT Transit bus system, which has become a transportation option of last resort, not choice, in New Haven.)

Hausladen and Perez agreed that the city needs buses that run more frequently or streets with better traffic flow. Hausladen said evaluating ways to improve current transportation methods, and possibly add new ones, would ultimately be both more cost-effective and more environmentally friendly. 

And he said the possibilities for solutions are widely varied.

The beauty of the study is we don’t have any preconceived solutions,” he said. So while an enhanced bus service is an option, so is bus rapid transit (which operates buses like a metro system, often with separate lanes) and even urban circulators, or streetcars.

Hausladen and Mayor Harp have also called on DOT to equip CT Transit buses with GPS devices so riders can track real-time schedules.

The study will evaluate the current state of transit, as well as each alternative method possible with specific standards developed for each mode. Then the results will be sorted from a high-dollar to low-dollar analysis, presenting the city with a number of different options and cost-benefit analyses for each one.

In addition to considering new systems of transit, the study will look to best connect the existing modes, such as bus lines with train stations and shuttles.

Click here for a look at the advantages and disadvantages of launching a trolley system.

Hausladen emphasized the importance of the study and pointed to Harp’s classification of transit as a human rights issue.

Jobs are great,” Hausladen said, but if you can’t get to them, what good are they?”

Perez echoed the necessity for New Haven to invest in strategizing about the city’s methods for movement.

If you look at cities that are growing, that are prospering,” Perez said, they are cities that look ahead and plan.”

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