Thomas Breen photos
East Rock’s English Drive, soon to reopen to car traffic.
The city plans to reopen East Rock’s English Drive and a section of Orange Street to car traffic starting in early January in order to ease Cedar Hill residents’ concerns that closings dangerously bottled up their isolated neighborhood.
Mayor Justin Elicker announced that planned shift in East Rock street policy during a Tuesday afternoon Covid-focused virtual press conference, held on Zoom and YouTube Live.
Elicker said that, sometime in early January, the city will reopen to car traffic Orange Street between Cold Spring Street and English Drive, as well as English Drive between Orange Street and Rock Street.
The city will keep the nearby Farnam Drive closed to car traffic, as well as the block of East Rock Road connecting Farnam Drive to Livingston Street.
All of those East Rock Park-adjacent roadways have been closed to car traffic and reserved for pedestrians, cyclists, joggers, and other non-motorized users only since late April. City government blocked off those blocks to allow residents to enjoy the outdoors at safe social distances during the pandemic.
Maya McFadden Photo
Neighbors blast road closure at Dec. 6 homicide memorial gathering.
On Tuesday, Elicker said that the park road closures have been some of the most popular decisions he has made during the pandemic. He said he routinely receives emails from constituents about how much they enjoy walking in the park without worrying about getting hit by a car.
Most of the comments he has received have gone along the line of: “There’s been a lot of very sad things about the pandemic,” Elicker said. “This [the closure of East Rock Park streets to car traffic] is an attribute about what’s changed that has been enjoyable for people to walk in a way that’s safe.”
The mayor said the city will move to reopen English Drive and Orange Street in the coming month because of criticism he received from Cedar Hill residents that the road closures have left only one exit out of the neighborhood, on Grace Street. He heard the criticism at a rally sparked by a murder in the neighborhood.
“With the closure of English Drive, residents were concerned that they would not be able to get out of Cedar Hill if Grace Street was closed,” because, for example, a fire engine might be blocking the street.
Google Maps
The stretch of English Drive and Orange Street (in red) that will soon reopen to cars.
He also noted that he has received concerns about police response time being affected by the English Drive closure.
Elicker said that those concerns have come from Cedar Hill residents, not from the city police department.
In collaboration with East Rock/Cedar Hill Alder Anna Festa, Elicker said, “we worked on a compromise to allow many residents from around the city to continue walking” through East Rock Park unencumbered by car traffic, while also allowing Cedar Hill residents a “second pathway” out of the neighborhood.
In addition to the East Rock Park road closures, the city has blocked off over the course of the pandemic a block of James Street near Criscuolo Park in Fair Haven, one lane on College Street downtown, and a block of Orange Street in the Ninth Square.
“I’m very, very open to the idea of closing other roads if residents who live in the area want that,” he said. So far, he said, he has received little outreach from neighbors calling for more street closures outside of the blocks that have already been shuttered.
In a follow-up interview, city spokesperson Gage Frank told the Independent that the East Rock Park-adjacent roads that have been closed for much of the pandemic are owned by the city parks department, and therefore there closures did not require a formal consideration and vote by the Board of Alders.
Twitter Reflections
On Monday, one of New Haven’s essential Tweeters — DFA New Haven — anticipated the mayor’s Tuesday announcement through the following eight-post thread reflecting on the relationship between Cedar Hill and the rest of the city. Below is a transcription of that thread in its entirety. (Click here to read the thread on Twitter.)
A few thoughts about the conflict over the mayor’s decision to end the street closures in East Rock Park that some neighbors in Cedar Hill have called for, putting them at odds with “open streets” advocates and residents of more affluent East Rock on the park’s other side.
Background: roads through East Rock have been closed to cars since April to give people more room to enjoy the park while maintaining social distancing during Covid. The idea of “open streets” in the park has been discussed for years; Covid provided the stimulus to get it done.
After complaints from Cedar Hill neighbors, the city plans to re-open English Drive to cars while keeping Farnam Drive mostly closed.
[Pictured: Aerial of railyard and neighborhood on back side of East Rock]
Some have suggested that the conflict is about recent shootings in Cedar Hill and concerns about police and other emergency vehicles not being able to quickly access the neighborhood. This may be true in a limited sense but is devoid of the necessary historical context.
To grasp the conflict in its full contours you have to go back to Cedar Hill’s origins as a remote enclave of railroad workers who worked at the nearby railyard. Isolated by its physical geography, cut off from the rest of New Haven by East Rock and the Mill River, it was….
…like a company town on the distant fringes of New Haven. Urban renewal and the building of I‑91 exacerbated its physical separation. Meanwhile, Cedar Hill has always felt an acute political isolation because it is lumped together with, & overshadowed by, East Rock in Ward 10.
Ward 10 has always been represented by an alder from the whiter, wealthier East Rock section of the ward; and Cedar Hill has felt like a neglected step-child at City Hall. This is the political cauldron in which Mayor Elicker was first elected as ward 10 Alder way back in 2009…
… i.e. on a promise to better represent the Cedar Hill part of the ward and end its political, if not geographical, isolation. That is the context in which these decisions over street closures are being made.
Justin may not have heard from residents about other street closures because that isn't how the City closes streets. Usually, as anyone who has closed a street for an event has the joy of discovering, it starts with going through the Board of Alders, department input, receiving a public hearing, and getting voted on openly.
Justin used his mayoral authority to leapfrog that process when asked to by East Rock residents - and now we find out... he skipped talking to the people that actually live there!
This street was the only one that was closed, like this, across the entire city. Why? Was there ever an attempt to ask residents where should be closed?
That is what sounds like "little outreach", not the way Justin used it here - wondering absently if other neighborhoods might want street parks, fairs, and pedestrian space - and then excusing his inaction by saying / blaming them that they didn't ask for it loud enough.
If this is how he handles outreach, then we maybe we shouldn't prioritize street closures based on who the Mayor feels is reaching out to him personally. That the residents of the richest ward in the city have their former Alder on speed-dial isn't a credit for being open and responsive to residents - ESPECIALLY if step 2 isn't asking the poorer, blacker neighbors who are actually affected by it. You can't excuse not giving services to disenfranchised residents if you don't make an effort to reach out to them when government decisions affect them.
Finding out how residents in the poorest neighborhoods can get more quality space outside in a pandemic would have been the right move - too bad it didn't come up until winter set in.