Biking Brennan Breaks From Micromobile Pack

If the latest round of mayoral competition is any guide, New Haven has come quite a distance from the days when the mayor’s aides talked him into ditching a Lincoln Navigator SUV for a Prius and photo-op bike rides.

The latest round involved the surveying and grading of mayoral candidates on how to make city streets safer for people using bicycles, wheelchairs, scooters, skateboards, walkers, and their own two feet.

The mayoral candidates competed for who would emerge as the most micromobile of the bunch.

The New Haven Safe Streets Coalition distributed the surveys then graded them by committee. Wednesday they issued the results: Liam Brennan led the pack with 88 points out of 100, followed by fellow Democratic candidates Shafiq Abdussabur at 85, Justin Elicker at 75, and Tom Goldenberg at 71.

Wendy Hamilton, who has filed papers to run as an unaffiliated candidate in the Nov. 7 general election, scored 43; another unaffiliated filer, Mayce Torres received an ​“incomplete.”

The main finding wasn’t the differences among the candidates, but the agreement: All respondents support automated traffic enforcement cameras, free bus service, maximum-20 mile-per-hour speed limits, and the state ​“vision zero” plan to lower pedestrian deaths. All the Democrats also support eliminating parking minimums in zoning. Most supported hard-border protected bike lanes over regularly-toppled ​“delineators” and allowing cyclists to use rolling ​“Idaho stops” over full stops.

The candidates’ efforts to be seen as ​“micromobility”-friendly reflects the growing strengths of the ​“safe streets” movement.

The movement didn’t exist when a Green Party candidate named John Halle won an East Rock alder seat in 2001 in part by riding his bike through the ward and promoting two-wheeled and climate-oriented policies. A ​“critical mass” bikeriding culture was sprouting up in town at the time marked by an annual ​“Rock to Rock” community event, amid a national urban quest to find alternatives to cars. Then-Mayor John DeStefano, eyeing a gubernatorial run, recognized the growth of this movement; soon ​“sharrows” and painted bike lines popped up on some streets in town. He agreed to ditch his city-issued Navigator as the official mayoral vehicle in favor of a plug-in, while making occasional trips through New Haven streets on two wheels.

The growth of bike advocacy coincided with citywide outrage over deaths of pedestrians. That led to a citywide safe streets movement, that in turn led to city government-approved ​“safe routes” plans.

Justin Elicker championed that movement from the start of his alder and then mayoral career, highlighting his own regular use of bicycles to get around. Meanwhile, the movement grew to embrace people who rely on ​“micromobile” transit beyond biking and walking as well as a visible grassroots climate change action movement. Demands for painted bike lanes morphed into demands for separated bike lanes, then permanently-separated bike lanes, and wheelchair-friendly curb cuts, longer walk lights, shorter pedestrian crossings, stepped-up traffic enforcement, along with speed bumps, speed humps, roundabouts, and now even … a peanut-about.

So the commonalities were more striking than the differences in this latest campaign report card.

Brennan said he has been struck by how often he hears demands for traffic-calming and safer streets when he knocks on voters’ doors. From Newhallville to Fair Haven, that issue ranks high on people’s list of concerns, just below education, public safety/policing, and housing, he said.

It’s tough to suss out exactly how Abdussabur scored 10 points higher than Elicker on his report card, or how Brennan, an avid rider (who ferries his kids on the back of his two-wheeler as well), topped Abdussabur by another 3. The candidates answered a mix of multiple choice and short-answer questions. One of the coalition members involved in the project, Stasia Brewczynski, told the Independent that a team of five graders anonymously awarded numerical scores for the candidates. The group averaged those scores. 

One clear difference: Whether, as mayor, the candidates would agree to proceed with improvements like protected bike lanes in a neighborhood over the objections of a single alder. That’s not a hypothetical: Such opposition has held back plans for a protected bike lane in East Rock. The ​“Safe Routes For All” city plan allows the mayor to use executive authority in that way.

Brennan said he would exercise that authority.

“We have to build for the future to give people options” to get around safely, Brennan said in a conversation Thursday. ​“Neighborhood input is important,” but so is the ability for the city to advance a comprehensive vision. ​“We can’t give veto power to one individual,” he argued, citing the U.S. Senate as an example of an institution hamstrung in tackling societal challenges by single-member veto rules.

Abdussabur initially echoed that opinion. But in a plan posted on his website and in a conversation Thursday, he emphasized the need to respect each ward’s alder’s voice: ​“The alder is representing all of the people in that ward, the ones that vote and the ones that don’t vote. Under the democratic process, that’s the way our government is designed.”

Elicker, too, declined to pledge to overrule an alder: ​“We have to work with the alders. The Board of Alders approves street changes. It’s important to work with the alders because of legal authority. It’s important to work with the alders because they may have details of specific blocks and specific concerns people may have. It’s easy for a candidate to say, ​‘Sure I’d override the alders if I didn’t agree with them.’ It’s much harder to do these things when you’re working with people day in and day out and need to collaborate a lot of different initiatives together.”

Elicker also noted that multiple-choice and short-answer questions leave too little room for nuance. For example: Elicker, unlike his opponents, said he needed to learn more before committing to have New Haven participate in a state-approved program to create pedestrian safety zones. Read about those here.

Brennan lost some of his answer to the question: ​“Do you support establishing parking maximums in New Haven?” His answer: ​“I don’t know.”

“The Coalition supports establishing parking maximums in New Haven in order to shift the prioritization of public space away from the storage of private cars and back toward safe, sustainable, equitable public use — including but not limited to Brennan’s own suggestion that overly paved street space should be reserved for such higher uses as housing people instead of cars,” Brewczynski said.

The Deep Dive

Following is the text of a summary of the survey results prepared by New Haven Safe Routes For All: 

The Safe Streets Coalition distributed a questionnaire of multiple choice and short-answer questions about timely safe streets topics to New Haven’s six mayoral candidates — Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, Justin Elicker, Tom Goldenberg, Wendy Hamilton, and Mayce Torres — and received responses from all candidates except Torres. Each resulting questionnaire grade has been calculated from the average score awarded by five Coalition graders:

• Liam Brennan earned 88 points out of 100
• Shafiq Abdussabur earned 85 points out of 100
• Justin Elicker earned 75 points out of 100
• Tom Goldenberg earned 71 points out of 100
• Wendy Hamilton earned 43 points out of 100
• Mayce Torres received an incomplete

100% of candidates support:

• Vision Zero, the goal of fully eliminating road deaths. See Safe Streets organizer Abigail Roth’s recent advocacy for HB 5917, An Act Implementing the Recommendations of the Vision Zero Council, a bill headed to Governor Lamont’s desk this week.
• Automated traffic enforcement, one of the important tools authorized by HB 5917.
• Reducing speed limits to 20 mph or less in New Haven, which, as research suggests, is best practice for safe, multimodal cities.
• Prioritizing fare-free bus service in Connecticut. See coverage of Safe Streets organizer Stasia Brewczynski and others advocating for fare-free bus service here.

The majority of candidates also supported crucial policies that have not had state and/or municipal support in the past, including:

• All candidates other than incumbent Justin Elicker say they would use their executive power (as given with approval of the Safe Routes For All Plan) to implement safe street improvements even if the alder for that street was not in support. On Shafiq Abdussabur’s website, however, he walks back his full support, saying, ​“This would depend on the improvement and the Alder and whether the cost was worth the price.”
• All candidates other than Wendy Hamilton support eliminating parking minimums, a zoning amendment that groups across the state and country have shown is crucial for the development of affordable housing and dense, walkable neighborhoods.
• All candidates other than Tom Goldenberg acknowledged that flexible delineator-marked micromobility lanes are insufficiently protected. This aligns with proven best practice and means that only about 4% of New Haven streets roadways offer sufficiently protected micromobility lanes.

The questionnaire also highlighted how candidates’ lived experiences can influence their ideas about policy and priorities, for example:

• Wendy Hamilton championed ​“Appropriate corner crossings for the disabled like me,” including ​“slanted curbs for small wheels and affected gaits.” Safe Streets organizer David Agosta was recently in the news for his advocacy for compliance with the federal government’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including filing ​“preliminary complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, alleging that the city has neglected sidewalks to the point of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and impeding disabled New Haveners from reaching basic needs.”
• Liam Brennan, who estimates he travels 80% of the time by bicycle or other micromobility vehicle, shared his experience as a bike rider who has been hit by car drivers twice on Edgewood Avenue, once while transporting his three-year-old. He cites these experiences as reasons he advocates for ​“a connected network of bike lanes that can stretch fully across the city, re-configured (and narrower) lanes that do not incentivize speeding, and more traffic calming at all points across the city,” and suggests that his decade-old proposal of ​“segregated biking facilities, particularly on Edgewood Avenue,” was a possible precursor to the still-unfinished Edgewood Avenue cycletrack.
• The Idaho Stop, also known as a ​“rolling stop” or ​“stop-as-yield” for bicyclists, is proven to be safer and more efficient than requiring bicyclists to make a full stop, yet Justin Elicker was the only candidate to say he would not support legalizing the Idaho Stop. Elicker, who estimates he travels 30% of the time by bicycle or other micromobility vehicle, shared in conversation during a Safe Routes for All public meeting that he himself has been pulled over by police for rolling through a stop sign while riding his bike, aka performing an Idaho Stop. (General coverage of that rolling meeting includes quotes from and images of Safe Streets organizers Doug Hausladen, Adam Weber, Adam Callaghan, Stasia Brewczynski, Lior Trestman, and Max Chaoulideer.) Shafiq Abdussabur, Tom Goldenberg, and Liam Brennan all supported the legalization of the Idaho Stop, while Wendy Hamilton responded that she was unsure about supporting legalization of the Idaho Stop. 

Most of the candidates noted how dangerous-by-design state-controlled roads negatively impact New Haven.The current mayor focused on recent improvements and his relationship to the new CTDOT commissioner, while his opponents concentrated on what they see as the work ahead, including turning the screws on CTDOT:

• “Whalley Avenue needs to implement bus lanes and think about removing the parking from most, if not all, of Whalley Avenue […] The distance between the crosswalks on Route 10 between Ellsworth and West Park is treacherous. We need another signal to cross pedestrians around Hobart Street.” — Shafiq Abdussabur
• “We have worked hard to push the state to do more on state roads for the safety of all users. While there is more work to be done, we have made significant progress. Part of this is due to our advocacy and the advocacy of many others in the New Haven community. Part of this is because there is more openness by the new Commissioner of the State DOT, with whom I am regularly in contact with. We’ve seen the state, for the first time ever, approve the installation of a raised crosswalk in front of Nathan Hale School on Townsend Avenue. We’ve seen the state be responsive to our concerns about drag racing by installing plastic bollards on Ella Grasso Boulevard. We also worked closely with the state on the installation of a much-needed sidewalk on the Boulevard that is now installed. We are working with the state on a redesign of Route 80/Foxon Boulevard for more pedestrian safety and to discourage the use of this road for drag racing, to name a few examples.” — Justin Elicker
• “The city needs to take an active role in pushing the state Department of Transportation to increase safety on state roads — narrowing them, protecting crossings and making them more livable for the people who have to live on those roads. This includes direct lobbying with the DOT and well as using the mayor’s bully pulpit to call out the state when it makes bad calls.” — Liam Brennan

Beyond supporting a return to fare-free service, some candidates also shared ideas about improving public bus transportation in New Haven:

• Liam Brennan championed greater connectivity between New Haven and its suburbs to ​“encourage more non-car trips across the metro area, and make commuting easier for workers throughout the city and region.” He also suggested adding a circle line within the city to help positively address limitations of New Haven’s current hub-and-spoke model.
• Justin Elicker identified ​“Bus Rapid Transit” — typically defined as a network of dedicated bus-only lanes — as the solution to ​“creating a bus system that is frequent, convenient, and fast” and putting ​“buses on level footing with private vehicles.” Additionally, he touted the importance of traffic calming, ADA compliance, and sidewalk-hazard mitigation, particularly in conjunction with bus corridors.

Of course, candidates did not always agree:

• On policing: Shafiq Abdussabur asserted that his experience as a police sergeant gives him ​“firsthand [experience of] the importance of public safety and reducing fear or crime.” He also likened his approach to overcoming barriers to transportation and mobility justice to ​“walking a beat”, saying, ​“If you can rule the sidewalk, you can rule the streets.” On the other hand, Liam Brennan criticized mayor Justin Elicker​’s proposed budget, which, he says, ​“over concentrates its spending on new police department personnel,” while he notes schools and the Livable City Initiative are short-staffed. Our current reliance on police officers for traffic enforcement has proven to be neither effective nor safe, especially for Black drivers and pedestrians. ​“Self-enforcing streets,” however, are shown to make a marked difference. Self-enforcing streets prioritize safe street design, treat traffic violence as a public health crisis, and thoughtfully implement automated enforcement to create more transparent and less biased enforcement.
• On New Haven becoming a Pedestrian Safety Zone: Among other benefits, becoming a Pedestrian Safety Zone allows municipalities to set speed limits on municipally owned roads, gain access to training and funding sources, and better track and implement safe street improvements. Despite HB 5429 authorizing the creation of Pedestrian Safety Zones in 2021, New Haven has yet to take advantage of this legislation. While Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, and Wendy Hamilton all support New Haven becoming a Pedestrian Safety Zone, Justin Elicker isn’t sure.
• On measuring transportation impacts: Despite the passage of HB6107 in 2021, in which Connecticut became the first state to expressly allow zoning regulators to use the best practice ​“vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) standard, New Haven still studies, plans, and implements street projects based on ​“level of service” (LOS), an outdated and problematic standard that deprioritizes road users’ safety. When asked if candidates support measuring local transportation impacts in VMT rather than LOS, Liam Brennan and Shafiq Abdussabur supported the beneficial change, while Wendy Hamilton, Justin Elicker, and Tom Goldenberg said they didn’t know or left the question blank.
• On prioritizing micromobility lanes over street parking: In the context of commercial corridors, Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, and Tom Goldenberg advocated for prioritizing micromobility lanes over street parking — in alignment with the plethora of documentation showing that well-constructed micromobility lanes improve safety for all road users, bicycle riders spend more money at businesses than their car-driving counterparts, and micromobility lanes are good for business. In fact, business owners that advocate against micromobility lanes regularly change their mind after implementation.

In 2018, the Safe Streets Coalition was founded in part to help address systemic challenges blocking and obscuring the implementation and maintenance of safer streets through transportation and mobility justice in our community. ​“As mayor,” said candidate Justin Elicker in his questionnaire, ​“I have realized that most of the work of implementation lies not just in the will to change, but rather in working to change a system to make it work more efficiently and working with many stakeholders who often don’t fully agree with change.” No matter which candidate wins, the Coalition understands New Haven’s mayors do not work in a vacuum, and acknowledges that our city is best served by leaders and advocates that work with — and when necessary push against — the status quo and stakeholders, to create the change we need and deserve.