Pedestrian Ramp Pitched. Plus, Quantum!

The highway exit separating Downtown from the Hill could someday sprout an arc-shaped pedestrian ramp in the middle of nine lanes of traffic.

The city hopes to secure grant funding to build that ramp as part of a plan to help New Haven become a future hub of quantum computing technology.

The Board of Alders unanimously voted Monday night to authorize the city’s application for a five-year ​“Innovation Cluster” grant distributed by the state Department of Economic and Community Development.

The grant will allocate up to $100 million to support economic development initiatives fostering a particular industry within a Connecticut municipality. New Haven was selected as a finalist alongside Stamford and Hartford to submit a full application for the grant, which could potentially be awarded to more than one city, according to city Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli.

The City of New Haven is applying for the grant in tandem with Yale, UConn, and a group of biotech companies and developers, all part of an umbrella advocacy group called QuantumCT. Their vision is to spur investments in quantum technology and infrastructure in New Haven, complementing the city’s growing biotech sector.

If the city’s application is accepted, the grant would help fund the buildout of research and development laboratories focused on quantum computing, as well as workforce training programs related to the industry.

It would also fund pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in the ​“Downtown Crossing” area between Downtown and the Hill, where biotech companies have already built up a presence over the last decade.

Piscitelli, Economic Development Officer Dean Mack, and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn focused especially on that public infrastructure component of the grant — the portion most directly under city government’s purview — in a presentation to the Board of Alders City Services and Environmental Policy Committee Thursday evening.

In particular, the city is focusing on the mega-crosswalk where South Orange Street intersects with the Oak Street Connector, or Exit 1 off of I‑91.

The city completed an initial redesign of the intersection in 2022. Now, pedestrians are able to get from one side of the nine-lane road to the other by stopping at two pedestrian islands and waiting for a total of three walk signs.

The proposed pedestrian ramp would connect one of those pedestrian islands to the Church Street bridge across South Frontage Road, forming a small ​“promenade” complete with trees and greenery.

“It’s really gonna feel just like a neighborhood,” Piscitelli said.

East Rock Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith asked the presenters whether the ramp would ​“feel like a bandage,” rather than a true solution to the street’s car-dominated nature, ​“because there are so many lanes.”

“It’s something we wrestled with,” Zinn acknowledged. ​“Can we get rid of Exit 1? No, that’s not a viable option.” Given that constraint, Zinn said, the project would prioritize ​“ten feet of trees” and ​“creating wider pedestrian spaces that have as much buffer as possible” from the road.

The grant application was discharged from the committee in order to accelerate the approval process, ahead of an April 15 deadline. The full Board of Alders voted unanimously to enable the project on Monday evening. 

The actual infrastructure, if the city receives it, may take years to develop. ​“This is long term thinking,” Zinn said.