Thomas Breen photo
At Wednesday's parks commission meeting: this crew doesn't have power over summit road.
The Elicker administration — and not the parks commission — will have the final say over whether or not the road to the top of East Rock Park remains largely closed to cars, and open to pedestrians and cyclists only.
The mayor said he has received widespread community support for keeping the road largely closed to cars, so he plans not to make a change.
Acting Parks & Public Works Director Rebecca Bombero confirmed at the end of Wednesday night’s Board of Park Commissioners meeting that the city views the access conditions of the road to the summit of East Rock Park as a procedural matter to be determined internally by City Hall.
It’s not a matter that the parks commission needs to vote on. It’s also not a concern that requires the sign off of the Board of Alders. The parks commission took no vote on the matter Wednesday night.
In a follow-up interview on Thursday morning, Mayor Justin Elicker agreed with Bombero’s assessment that this is an administrative concern under the purview of his administration, as opposed to the parks commission. “That’s our understanding of where the authority lies,” he said.
Thomas Breen File Photo
The road in question spans from Holger’s parking lot on Farnam Drive all the way up to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the highest point of East Rock Park that overlooks the entire city and a popular destination for residents and tourists alike. On foot, the walk from one point to another is over a mile, and takes almost half an hour.
The Elicker administration first closed that road, among other internal East Rock Park roads, near the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020 in an effort to incentivize outside activity and the safe enjoyment of East Rock Park during quarantine. The internal park road closures were amended that December, and then, starting in September 2022, the city reopened the road from the back parking lot to the East Rock summit for cars on Sundays only. That road remains open to pedestrians and cyclists only Mondays through Saturdays — as has been the case for over three years.
At recent parks commission meetings, board members have debated what to do about that road to the summit. Critics of six-day-a-week ban on cars have claimed that it’s discriminatory towards people with disabilities, parents with strollers, the elderly, and others who have trouble walking long distances. Supporters have argued that that road has become more widely used and much safer and cleaner for people of all walks of life who no longer have to worry, six days a week, about getting hit by a car as they walk to the top.
Dave Agosta: "You cannot simply deny people their federally guaranteed rights."
During Wednesday night’s parks commission meeting at 720 Edgewood Ave., disability rights advocate Dave Agosta and Westville alder candidate Dennis Serfilippi encouraged the parks commissioners to vote on the matter — and to reopen the road to cars seven days a week.
Agosta alleged that the six-day-a-week car prohibition on the road to the summit violated federal law by discriminating against people with disabilities. “You cannot simply deny people their federally guaranteed rights,” he said. If someone with mobility limitations wants to access the summit on, say, a Tuesday, they should be able to.
Parks Commissioner Harvey Feinberg said that, during a previous commission discussion of the matter, one of the commissioners suggested that this matter be brought to the Board of Alders because there might be a “financial cost” to changing the current setup.
The road was open to cars seven days a week before the pandemic, Agosta replied. The only cost to making that the case again would be removing the barriers currently in place.
A lack of traffic, litter, and noise is not a good enough reason to keep the road closed to cars, he said. “You can’t punish people with disabilities for the behavior of somebody else, and that’s what we’re doing. I would ask that you reopen the summit to East Rock Park” and vote on it tonight.
Alder Santiago: "My opinion is, I think it should be open [to cars] seven days a week."
“My opinion is, I think it should be open [to cars] seven days a week,” Fair Haven Alder and Parks Commissioner Ernie Santiago said. “It was open before,” he continued. He suggested that Agosta send an email to the president of the Board of Alders, who might consider sending the issue to a committee for review.
“I am sending an email to my attorney,” Agosta said.
The parks commissioners didn’t take a vote on the matter on Wednesday, however.
Elicker: "Many, many people from all around the city [have been] using the road more and more, because it is safer."
Rather, Bombero said that city staff did have an internal meeting scheduled to discuss this matter. But health and vacation reasons caused that meeting to be delayed. “Hopefully we’ll get something on the books in the coming weeks.”
And on Thursday morning, after affirming that the city does believe that this is a matter that should be decided administratively, Elicker explained why he thinks the current summit-road setup should stay as is.
“It’s important to underscore that the road is not closed,” he said. Rather, it’s open for safer, car-free use six days a week. “Many, many people from all around the city [have been] using the road more and more, because it is safer.”
“Overwhelmingly, I’ve heard from the community that people want the road to continue to be open [for] pedestrians and cyclists and not vehicle traffic,” he continued. “We’ve opened it on Sundays to be more flexible for individuals that want to drive up to the summit.”
He said the city plans to “continue to stay the course” with how the summit road is set up now.
Elicker’s comments on Thursday were the same as those he made on during a pre-Democratic primary debate earlier this month when he and then-mayoral challenger Liam Brennan were asked about the East Rock summit car-closure.
Those debate-stage comments were met with praise at the time by the Safe Streets / Complete Streets New Haven advocacy group, which sent out an email blast to its members the following day.
“I just wanted to share the encouraging news that at the mayoral debate last night, Mayor Elicker stressed how much support the community has articulated to him for keeping Farnam Drive and the path to the top of East Rock Park open to pedestrians, cyclists, and all road users and that he plans to keep the current arrangement in place (with the road opened to cars on Sundays),” safe streets group member Max Chaoulideer wrote. “You can see his remarks here (at minute 40:10). It was also great to hear both candidates stress that while the street has been closed to cars, it has been opened to far more people, a small but important rhetorical shift.”
What does 'wide-spread community support' even mean? East Rockers??????
Let's have a referendum on the subject!!!!!