Thomas Breen Photo
Hausalden at a February community meeting.
CDN Smith
Cycletrack plan — at least as of four years ago.
• City readies comprehensive plan for bike, pedestrian commuters.
• Long-delayed Edgewood cycletrack delayed once more.
Its director, Doug Hausladen, sent that message Wednesday night to the Westville/West Hills Community Management Team.
Thirty neighbors heard the message via the Zoom teleconferencing app in a gathering hosted by the group’s chair, Joshua Van Hoesen.
Hausladen said he wants to hear from citizens about specific intersections, traffic lights, problematical curbs and other such small but potentially dangerous “pain points” in a walker’s, a bicyclist’s, or a bus commuter’s journey to work or to the store.
The city is preparing to devise its first comprehensive plan for bicycle and pedestrian commuters, Hausladen said. He and his department through a program called Safe Routes For All (funded through a larger CDC grant program called Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health or REACH) are looking to compile an inventory of the “gaps” in the current system.
These might include dangerous intersections, lights that do not have any or the wrong pedestrian phases, an area that needs new or better bike lanes, bus stops that would better serve the public if they might be moved 20 yards, or a corner where idling bus engines are polluting the atmosphere unnecessarily and to the detriment of the public health.
“Document your pain points” either by posting them on SeeClickFix or by emailing [email protected], Hausladen said.
“This is not a one-off,” added Tom Ficklin, who under the grant will assist Hausladen and TT&P staff in engaging with the public and collecting the data.
“There is no citywide plan for bikes and pedestrians,” said Hausladen, and that is a gap that should be filled in a city like New Haen where 20 percent of people bike or walk to work.
After a year of pilot temporary projects in six city neighborhoods — such as temporary traffic calming with “rubber duckies” or intersection-narrowing through pavement painting — city engineers are getting ready to put it all together in a comprehensive approach.
Even before the one-hour meeting was concluded, participants like CMT Co-Chair Iva Johnson were making suggestions directly to Hausladen and to Ficklin via Zoom’s chat function.
“Brookside bike lanes are too small,” Johnson wrote.
Dan DeRose, the engagement manager at Chapel Haven, “chatted” that he and his organization would like to learn about the program from Hausladen.
Back To Cycletrack Drawing Board
CDN Smith
Cycletrack plan — at least as of four years ago.
In a brief question-answer interlude, Westville activist Denis Serfillipi asked how this project fits within the overall scope of what the city is doing about safe streets.
“There are so many things going on. What are the priorities?” Serfilippi challenged Hausladen. “And what is the process by which priorities are determined?”
Serfilippi cited in this regard the Edgewood Cycle Track, and the now-discontinued bike share program.
Hausladen said he was prepared to respond to Serfilippi’s list of issues. But Van Hoesen determined too much time would be taken from other matters on the agenda and urged Serfilippi and Hausladen to pursue their Q‑and‑A afterwards.
Hausladen did add, however, that “the bike share company, I’m sorry to say, failed. That’s not good, but we’re going to keep trying.”
As to the long-delayed $1.2 million state-funded Edgewood Cycle Track project? Hausladen said no contractors responded earlier this year to the city’s advertisement for the project. So the work scope is now being reconfigured.
In an email to the Independent after the meeting, Hausladen added, “Changes have been made [in the Edgewood Cycle Track project] to the signal heads in the design to reduce price and hopefully risk for contractors to entice bids this year. No changes have been made that require additional public outreach or engagement. These are technical changes that have helped (hopefully) continue to drive price down and simplicity up for contractors. The plan is to get out to bid in coming weeks when we hear back that the changes in signal designs have been approved. The changes, again as stated, were technical and not impacting the design approved by the traffic commission.”
Buit Van Hoesen
But?