There are low flying geese all along the Quinnipiac River. Better slow down lest they smack into your grill and ruin your engine.
Oh, and why not be nice and lower the revs when you pass the beds of sleeping oysters?
The geese aren’t real —they’re depicted in a sign. As is the message about sleeping oysters.
Those humorous signs, in words and graphics, have appeared in recent days along the chronic speedway of Quinnipiac Avenue in Fair Haven Heights.
They are part of a grassroots effort to deploy temporary measures to slow traffic on the avenue in the run-up to an expected extensive city and state funded $1.8 million physical upgrade of the thoroughfare roughly from Clifton Street, near the Grand Avenue Bridge, up to Middletown Avenue.
[media_2}The humorous signs are the brainchild of activist Patricia Kane, Q Avenue resident and developer Fereshteh Bekhrad, artist Bill Meddick, and other members of the Quinnipiac East Management Team (QEMT).
In the spring Bekhrad was awarded a $5,000 grant as part of the community management teams’s $20,000 Neighborhood Public Improvement Program’s allotment, which was made available to all the management teams citywide.
The QEMT initiative was approved in an exercise in ranked-choice voting in February.
About $500 has been spent so far printing the signs, reported Bekhrad, in 16 different designs, with wording on one side and visually connected pictures on the reverse. The signs have wording such as “Low Flying Geese,” or “Skunk Crossing,” or “Shhhhhh, Oyster In Beds.”
“We have distributed and installed 27 and have in my office another 21 to be installed,” Bekhrad added in an email.
The idea is to place the signs, which have the dimensions of political signage, all along the avenue, added Patricia Kane. The locations are being dictated by where they will be most visible and whether there is grass available for the sticking.
Additional measures in the activists’ toolbox will include painted bump-outs with “rubber ducky barriers” and other low-cost visual clues to slow down on speedy Quinnipiac Avenue.
This effort by the QEMT is hardly the first grassroots effort to take steps along this straight avenue that for decades has been used as a rapid cut-through by drivers. The avenue has been the scene of many accidents and far more near misses.
An array of signs and other measures are being prepared for one of the diciest intersections in the city, reported Bekhrad. That would be Quinnipiac Avenue and Hemingway Street, where blocked sight lines and an angled entrance to the avenue require vehicular nosing out.
Back in January, as neighbors were cooking up their temporary measures, City Engineer Giovanni gave a brief description of the concrete measures coming to the avenue through the $1.8 million project.
The project is supported by state LOTCIP (Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program) funding, he said. “The scope will include traffic calming, paving, sidewalks, and curbs. We will be having public meetings in the first half of this year to work with the Quinnipiac Avenue neighborhood to understand their concerns about the street and come to a community-centric design that addresses their concerns. It will also require [Board of Alders] approval.”
That work is scheduled to begin this spring.
No definitive word yet on the effectiveness of using entertainment to slow down drivers. However, one “Skunk Crossing” sign has already disappeared, and has been replaced. Kane said the budget includes sufficient funds for replacements.
In the meantime, watch out for those low-flying geese.
Just to clarify, this Part 1 project for Traffic Calming is headed by architect Fereshteh Bekhrad. The art work was designed, along with some of the messages, by muralist JoAnn Moran of Lots of Fish, whose art work adorns many New Haven neighborhoods.
Artist Bill Meddick has created a sign for installation at Clifton St and Q. Avenue (not shown in the article.)<br /> The QEMT members working with Fereshteh and JoAnn is considering selling some duplicate signs to raise funds for replacements, as well as new signs.<br /> In Part 2 the group will be working with Giovanni Zinn and other Doug Hausladen on specific traffic calming approaches outlined in the first draft currently under review.