Seniors Press Elicker On Unsafe Streets

Patricia Ross has a nickname for the stretch of Division Street outside her apartment where cars drive so quickly she feels she’s always in danger of getting hit: ​“The Indianapolis Raceway.”

Ross shared that unfortunate nickname, and those concerns about traffic safety, during Mayor Justin Elicker’s latest non-campaign neighborhood stop to to talk to residents about the state of the city.

Elicker swung by the Dixwell/Newhallville Senior Center Wednesday morning for a half-hour visit.

In a room brightly decorated with cut-out paper hearts and framed photographs of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr., in honor of both Valentine’s Day and Black History Month, Elicker stood before the center’s Bingo board and thanked the two dozen senior citizens before him for, simply enough, being seniors.

“It’s so important for us as a community to recognize the importance of seniors,” he said.

Because of their years of investment in this city. Because of the wealth of knowledge they have about how the city has changed and how it’s stayed in the same.

“We’re all going to be seniors some day,” Elicker said.

Just as he has done at other post-election stops at Dunkin Donuts in Fair Haven and Three Sheets Bar on the Dwight/Downtown border, Elicker spent most of his visit listening to what residents in the room had to say — and about what they’d like to see from the new mayoral administration.

What he heard — over and over and over again — was the same message he heard from a different set of safe streets advocates during a public meeting last month: New Haven’s streets are dangerous speedways where nearly as many pedestrians were struck and killed last year as were killed by gunfire. Two pedestrians have been struck and killed on city streets so far this year.

Ross (pictured), 81, said she has lived on Division Street near Shelton Avenue for decades.

“You have to put in more speed bumps,” she implored the mayor. ​“It’s the Indianapolis Speedway.”

She said cars routinely race from Shelton up the hill to Prospect and vice versa. ​“It seems to me the closer they get to the intersection, the faster they go,” she said.

Elicker said that Police Chief Otoniel Reyes has prioritized bumping up traffic safety and speeding enforcement during the mayor’s first month-plus in office. He promised to talk with the city’s traffic and transportation department to see if Ross’s stretch of Division is on the list of city streets slated to get a speed bump soon. Just as he did with everyone he spoke to Wednesday, Elicker tapped Ross’s phone number into his cellphone and promised to follow up.

Sitting right next to Ross, Miriam Mccrary (pictured), 86, had a similar set of concerns for the new mayor. Except she lives in a different part of town, in Beaver Hills on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard in between Goffe Terrace and Glen Road.

She said cars speed up and down the Boulevard so frequently, ​“I can’t get out of my driveway” until the closest traffic light has changed to red.

“You’d get a lot of money for the city if you had a traffic cop parked on my street,” she said.

Elicker promised to talk with city police about enforcement on that block. He noted that most of the money collected from speeding tickets actually goes to the state. ​“But we should do it anyway,” he said about increased enforcement of traffic laws, to ensure that city streets are safe for all.

Mccrary said the street likely can’t have speed bumps because it’s an ambulance run for emergency vehicles getting to the hospital. Nevertheless, she asked the mayor to figure out something that makes the Boulevard a little more friendly for those not looking to race on through.

Two tables away, Betty Saunders, 76, and Edwina Vaughn (pictured together), 76, had the same message for the mayor.

“My street needs speed bumps,” Saunders said when asked about her top concern for her neighborhood. She lives on Munson Street in between County Street and Orchard Street. ​“Dirt bikes race on through” all the time, she said.

“I’ve lived on Winthrop Avenue since 1981,” Vaughn said. She said she couldn’t recall the last time her street was paved. It’s beyond bumpy, she said, full of cracks and holes. And as for speeding on the block? ​“We need more speed bumps.”

Not everyone Elilcker spoke to Wednesday focused exclusively on traffic safety when they had the mayor’s ear.

Andrea Smith and Sherrill Rodman (pictured) told the mayor that they’re on his email listserv, and appreciate the regular email updates he sends out about what’s going on at City Hall.

“It’s very helpful,” Rodman said.

Smith and Rodman, who are cousins and grew up in New Haven, told Elicker that they’re known at the senior center as ​“The Puzzle Ladies.”

They pointed behind where they were seated to one of their proudest puzzle accomplishments to date: a puzzle of a photograph of themselves! Which a mutual friend had recently given the two as a gift.

“I think it was very nice when he was campaigning, he wouldn’t promise anything,” Rodman said about Elicker. Instead, ​“he said he’d look into it.” She liked that more cautious approach towards campaigning and governance, she said.

Margie Staggers (pictured), 69, took her time with the mayor to offer her support. ​“I hope you make it,” she said. ​“Just remember, there are all these people here to help.”

She said she’s partially blind and has crippling arthritis in her knees. But she doesn’t let that stop her from coming out to he senior center and socializing. If she were a bit younger and healthier, she said, she’d likely be one of those people she referenced: someone there to help the new mayor succeed.

Click on the Facebook Live video to watch part of Elicker’s Wednesday morning visit to the senior center.