Maya McFadden Photo
Among the intersections where neighbors seek safer crossings.
West Hills residents sometimes take their lives into their hands crossing Valley Street. The city and neighbors are hoping that raised intersections and crosswalks may change that by slowing down speeders on the busy winding, narrow cut-through.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn proposed that solution and West Hills neighbors applauded the idea during an online community meeting Tuesday night.
It was the latest of a series of public input meetings Zinn is conducting to get feedback before designing details of multi-million-dollar state-funded redesigns of commercial corridors throughout town to make them safer. (Click here to read about the previous meeting, about a Whalley Avenue project.)
Like the others, the Valley Street project will focus on improving on traffic-safety infrastructure for pedestrians.
Tuesday’s public input meeting.
The entirety of Valley Street was discussed during the Tuesday evening public input meeting. People can add personal concerns and ideas to a public comment tool for the project team to view and consider, by clicking here.
From Blake Street on the southeast end to Pond Lily Avenue on the northwestern end, Valley Street’s surrounding neighborhood is split apart by the dangerous road, where drivers can travel at 45 miles per hour or more through residential areas. They’re often cutting to or from the Wilbur Cross Parkway to avoid more heavily traveled Whalley Avenue.
“These roads spilt the neighborhood apart. People really don’t want to cross them. They’re dangerous. People drive way too fast on them,” Zinn said. “This is an opportunity to stitch our neighborhoods back together.”
To enhance Valley Street’s walkability, the city must work to improve road safety and compliance, Zinn said. That means slowing drivers down.
The project has $2 million of state funding dedicated from the Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program (LOTCIP).
The online comment tool will be open until March 15 for public insight. Then the project team will use the collected input to draft a concept design(s) and present it to the community in April. After feedback is heard, a design will be finalized and the team will work to get its local and state approvals.
Construction is estimated to begin in Spring 2022. During the project funds will be used to repave the road.
Zinn showed local examples of possible fixes used elsewhere in New Haven, such as a raised crosswalk on Clinton Avenue. The extended speed bump-like structure aims to remind drivers to slow down for their own, other drivers’, and pedestrian safety.
Hemingway Street was also used as an example of a squared-off intersection to give drivers better sight lines before merging into oncoming traffic. “We want to improve those geometries to make them more predictable and easier for people to see and navigate,” Zinn said.
Rectangular rapid flash beacons, painted bump-outs and stamped concrete in tree belts were also suggested by city Transportation, Traffic & Parking Director Doug Hausladen.
One idea floated would make the current mid-block crossing at 120 Valley St. into a raised crosswalk during this project, along with marking a series of unmarked legal crosswalks.
Raymond Jackson said crossing and driving Valley Street is an “accident waiting to happen.” He said he has witnessed several close calls over the years.
Some hilly parts of Valley Street may not allow for raised crosswalks or intersections, depending on their steepness Zinn said.
In addition to crosswalks, residents raised concerns about Valley Street becoming a cut-through option for drivers in a rush looking to avoid driving on Whalley Avenue.
Neighbors have worked hard to build community in West Hills, including designing and installing signs like these on Valley Street.
“Having a street that has things like raised intersections, crosswalks, and geometry improvements, you really can’t drive that at 45 miles per hour. So you may choose then to stay on Whalley Avenue,” Zinn responded. “It really messages to people that if you want to come down Valley Street, you respect the fact that this is a neighborhood as opposed to a speedway.”
Dennis Grimes lives in the Valley Townhomes as a single father raising his young daughters. Grimes, who is legally blind, has been asking the city for the past seven years for a go-slow sign to be put up in the area indicating a blind resident lives in the neighborhood. Grimes struggles to cross the street daily to get to the small store across the street.
“What am I suppose to do now? By 2022 I could be dead by one of these cars hitting me or my child crossing the road just to get to the neighborhood store,” he said.
Grimes asked that the project team include a permanent sign in the project plans and for a temporary one to be put up in the mean time.
Alder Honda Smith at meeting: Raised crosswalks and intersections will help.
West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith said she supports the idea for raised intersections and crosswalks, which require the traffic to yield to the community pedestrians.
Smith added that side streets like Mountain Road, which currently has curb bump-outs, are still difficult to exit from due to blind spots created by parked cars blocking the view of oncoming traffic.
Grimes added the hope that the road improvements will decrease neighborhood crime.
“The project will [deter] people that come in our neighborhood and shoot, because then they will know they can’t speed out and get away,” he said.
“I’m so happy that we’re gonna have a neighborhood that is going to feel like a real neighborhood,” West Rock Democratic Party Committee Co-Chair Iva Johnson said in support of the raised intersection and crosswalk ideas.
For the love of god - do we really have to have raised intersections and speed bumps on every street in this city? Really? I've driven this street many times - with the curves, the two schools, and school buses, I find it very hard to believe people are driving that fast on this stretch of road. These raised intersections can cost hundreds of thousands - that's a good use of money? I'm sick of driving over speed bumps. Have the cops start writing $100 tickets.