nothin Cyclists, Pedestrians Track Trouble Spots | New Haven Independent

Cyclists, Pedestrians Track Trouble Spots

Zshekinah Collier Photo

Cyclists stop at Orchard and Sylvan to discuss potential improvements.

A group of 16 cyclists were riding down Orchard Street Saturday when a driver of a car sped up and without signaling, cut in front of the leader.

That sent the cyclists to the sidewalk — and gave them a data point to note.

The cyclists were taking a 4.4-mile group ride through New Haven to note problems and seek suggestions as part of a Safe Routes for All Bike Survey. The event was organized by a team putting together a plan for the city to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The city’s Department of Transportation, Traffic, and Parking (TT&P)  is putting together along the plan with the organization CARE (Community Alliance for Research and Engagement), with help from a federal Centers for Disease Control grant. Street Plans, an urban planning and transportation planning firm, was hired by the city as lead consultants for the plan.

Bike traffic light at High and Chapel.


“We started this in 2017. We’ve identified a need for a plan since 2015, and we’ve been just trying to put the money together and find the right partners,” said TT&P Director Doug Hausladen. “We’ve taken an approach to lead with public health, so having a public health partner like CARE really brings different conversations on the table.”

The 16 cyclists and a separate group of 10 pedestrians from the community were led by organizers on pre-prepared routes throughout the city. They stopped at intersections to discuss and fill out online “walkabout” and “handlebar” surveys focusing on what infrastructure and safety concerns they saw.

“We wanted to ride on routes where there was already infrastructure, to see if that infrastructure could be improved, how is it working so far and we also took into account feedback from our first public workshop about certain routes that people said were problematic,” said one of the leaders, Street Plans Senior Project Manager Dana Wall.

“It’s like putting ourselves into your shoes,” said Street Plans’ Veronica Rivas.

Participants were asked to answer prompts based on whether they felt safe and whether routes were set up well for biking or walking: 1 for Disagree, 2 Somewhat Disagree, 3 Somewhat Agree and 4 Disagree. The street or areas that score the lowest will be reviewed in the Safe Routes For All plan and potentially prioritized for improvements.

Cyclist Adam Weber who recently moved to New Haven, said he wants to see “safety improvements for pedestrians especially at intersections, and some more protected bike infrastructure to separate the modes of travel.”

The group stopped for discussion and analysis at intersections approximately every mile. When the group stopped after riding down Sherman Avenue, cyclists said they worry about being doored and usually avoid biking in that area because of the limited space with cars parked on the street.

Due to heavy traffic, car speed, and lack of bike infrastructure, participants also felt unsafe after the group biked down Orchard Street and stopped at the Sylvan Avenue intersection.

Dana Wall (left) and Doug Hausladen (right) explain safety rules.

There was an increase in infrastructure in the Downtown Loop ranging from designated bike lanes or boxes to bike traffic lights. Hausladen announced to the group that a cycletrack/protected bike lane the length of Edgewood Avenue is coming soon. (Click here to read a story about delays in that project.)

The Safe Routes For All Plan has already made improvements in New Haven using tactical urbanism.” Some examples are the bright painted areas on Sylvan Avenue and Dixwell Avenue that extend the curb and identify bus stops and bike lanes. 

We need a lot of infrastructure and improvements here. We need a lot more traffic calming. There’s a lot of things that can be done in the interim, but things like paint are not really protection,” said Adam Callaghan, a cyclist who participated in the survey.

The thing is, there’s only so much that we even want to enforce. I don’t really want more enforcement. It’s biased, it’s not fair and it’s not safe for a lot of people. You just need to design the streets better.”

New Haven is flat, and it’s relatively dense, it should be a world-class bike city. and I would love to see us lead on that,” he said.

Bike survey participants Stasia Brewczynski, Lior Trestman, Adam Callaghan and Max Chaoulideer.

On the tour, Hausladen suggested a conversation about the rights of way, and whether cyclists should be allowed to yield rather than stop at some stop signs. An Idaho Stop allows the prioritization of a cyclist to approach a stop sign, and if there’s no pedestrian present, they can just roll through the stop sign at a very slow speed.”

Stopping and starting is the most challenging part of riding a bike. If you can remove that, it becomes a much more pleasant cycling experience. If you make the cycling experience more pleasant, more people will do it,” he said. 


Watch for Me CT
City of New Haven Complete Streets Design Manual
Safe Street Coalition of New Haven
New Haven Safe Streets
The Tom Ficklin Show: New Haven Safe Streets and Active Transit Planning for the Community.
The Key to Safe Streets: Five Cities Humanizing Street Design
Green Cities: Good Health

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