Adam Weber Photo
Painted street-crossings, above, started the process of restitching the borders of Wooster Square and downtown.
Pedestrians and cyclists will have a protected slice of State Street all to themselves. But what about bus riders?
That new information, and subsequent questions, emerged from city leaders’ first public input session about plans to redesign one of the city’s widest driving corridors, one that connects four neighborhoods and two train stations, to rebuild housing and restore safe pathways in an Urban Renewal-cleared corridor.
Officials offered new details about exactly how the downtown street is likely to change at a virtual community meeting on Tuesday evening, which drew over 60 attendees.
With an influx of $5.3 million from a state Communities Challenge Program grant, the city is planning to cleave the downtown section of State Street in two, creating a separated corridor for pedestrians and bicyclists that would extend to the Farmington Canal Trail.
In a contract with the state, the city has committed to creating opportunities for 450 housing units and 20,000 square feet of commercial space along State Street, while promoting cyclist and pedestrian activity.
According to current designs, State Street’s current six traffic lanes will shrink to four. The Canal Trail extension will hook south onto State via Grove Street, occupying the east side of the road while cars continue to move in both directions on the west side of the road. The Canal Trail extension will continue along State Street, passing by the State Street train station, and end after wrapping behind the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center (formerly the Knights of Columbus Museum) between Water and George Streets. (A forthcoming Water Street cycletrack will continue bike infrastructure in the Long Wharf direction.)
This setup “creates a special public space reminiscent of some of the promenades you see in Europe around the city streets,” said City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, whose department did the road design. (Toole Design Group did the traffic analysis.)
The Canal Trail's proposed curve onto State Street at Grove ...
... and the tail end of the proposed trail extension, which will lead to a cycle track on Water Street.
An additional block-long protected bike lane to the west of traffic will connect the Canal Trail on Grove to the brand new contra-flow bike lane on Wall Street. And one-way bike lanes will continue along State Street from Grove to Trumbull.
The city is planning extra measures to protect pedestrians and cyclists crossing the streets. The Chapel-State intersection will feature raised crosswalks, according to Zinn. The roads will have separate turn lanes for vehicles, where designated traffic signals will be timed so that cars won’t drive through crosswalks while pedestrians are walking, a system modeled after streets in Boston.
At Crown and Trumbull Streets, pedestrians will be able to activate blinking stop lights with the press of a button in order to cross.
Lower State Street currently features a string of parking lots, having been shaped by the mid-twentieth-century Urban Renewal movement that prioritized the role of cars in the city over pedestrian-scale life on the street.
Many of those lots, marked in green below, will be slated for housing development, according to Economic Development Project Manager Dean Mack. The city is estimating a total of 450 forthcoming housing units based on projected six-story buildings on those parcels. Under the city’s new inclusionary zoning law, 20 percent of housing developed on city-owned land will be designated as “affordable.”
Potential lots for housing development.
The 1950s/60s Urban Renewal vision of State Street “never functioned in the manner it was intended to support the growth of Downtown, Wooster Square, and the Hill,” said Economic Development Director Mike Piscitelli. The state grant offers New Haven an opportunity to revisit that vision, he said: “What does mixed use really mean in 2022, and what does it look like going forward?”
Activists: What About Buses?
Early attendees of Tuesday's meeting.
The New Haveners in attendance on Tuesday shared excitement about the city’s plans to create safer, separated infrastructure for active transit on a street well known as a challenge for pedestrians.
State Street is “probably the most contentious place that I would bring a child across,” wrote Chris Ozyck in the Zoom room chat.
“It’s very nice to see one of the worst streets in the city become a place where one actually wants to spend time,” said Max Chaoulideer.
Tuesday’s meeting drew five dozen people, many of whom, including members of New Haven’s Safe Streets Coalition, have been familiar faces at transportation-focused public meetings.
“I know about half of the people on the call. The vast majority are college educated white folk,” said East Rock resident Kevin McCarthy. “We need to find ways to make the conversation more inclusive.”
For several attendees, one key category of improvements was missing from the city’s plans: bus infrastructure.
“In the proposal I see a lot of dedicated turning lanes for cars,” wrote Adam Callaghan in the chat. “Will you consider dedicated bus lane(s) instead to prioritize efficiency of public transit over private vehicles?”
Zinn responded that “we’d love to do dedicated bus lanes everywhere, but we kind of cut down on the space we have already to prioritize the bike and active transportation structure.” He added that the turn lanes for cars, with designated turn lights, would enable pedestrians to cross the street without being interrupted by cars.
Attendees called for more bus stop shelters and benches along the corridor as well.
A few community members questioned why the city is anticipating only six-story buildings; they called for more density in the heart of downtown.
“6 stories is a conservative estimate based on construction costs,” Mack explained in the chat. “Above 6 stories, the construction method cannot be timber framing and the costs are much higher. If a developer sees the market potential to build a more costly building at a higher height we would not oppose that as long as it can be done safely. Some of these lots abut the railway embankment, which may present logistical challenges for taller buildings that require deeper foundations.”
Throughout the meeting, the Zoom room chat bubbled with ideas: residents suggested park benches, trees, and exercise equipment so that State Street could become, as Chaoulideer said aloud, a “place to be.”
“ “In the proposal I see a lot of dedicated turning lanes for cars,” wrote Adam Callaghan in the chat. “Will you consider dedicated bus lane(s) instead to prioritize efficiency of public transit over private vehicles?”
Zinn responded that “we’d love to do dedicated bus lanes everywhere, but we kind of cut down on the space we have already to prioritize the bike and active transportation structure.” He added that the turn lanes for cars, with designated turn lights, would enable pedestrians to cross the street without being interrupted by cars.
Attendees called for more bus stop shelters and benches along the corridor as well.”