Allan Appel Photo
Proposed plaza location at Central between Whalley and Fountain.
Hay bales and rubber duckies might sprout in Westville, as city planners ponder closing the short block of Central Avenue between Whalley and Fountain to create a one-block pedestrian plaza or piazza.
That possibility emerged Wednesday night at the regular monthly Westville/West Hills Community Community Management Team meeting that drew 40 people and officials to the cafeteria of the Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School on Fountain Street.
There Traffic, Transportation & Parking Director Doug Hausladen, along with his engineering consultants from the CDM Smith company, discussed the beginnings of a $60,000 study of the Fountain Street Corridor. The study is examining traffic patterns, crashes, parking, lane striping, and signaling on that thoroughfare from Whalley Avenue all the way to the Merritt Parkway.
“We want to focus our energy on where people are [also] biking, walking, moving,” said lead consultant David Sousa.
Funded through grant money from the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG), the study has already included formal traffic studies, counts of vehicles, speeds, and reviews of crash data over the last three years, said Rebecca Hall, another of the CDSmith staffers on hand for the meeting.
City traffic engineers Raj Mathur and Bijan Notghi.
The genesis of the effort, said Hausladen, came in the immediate aftermath of the re-striping of Fountain Street about three years ago, especially in the areas around the Mauro-Sheridan. Complaints centered around, among other issues, vehicle passing issues occasioned by school buses picking up and dropping off students.
That sent Hausladen’s department to seek grant money for the study. The mandate now is to explore the entire length of Fountain to see how traffic flows and public safety might be enhanced for drivers, bicyclists, and humans on foot.
During Wednesday night’s brief discussion the aspect of the study that drew the most interest by far was the prospect of transforming the short block of Central Avenue between Whalley and Fountain into a plaza-type space (no cars allowed) that would attract pedestrians, perhaps art displays, pop-up commerce, and other spontaneous eruptions of civic life.
Although Westville is self-characterized as a “village,” said Hausladen and the consultants, apart from the green space adjacent to the Mitchell Branch Library, it has no central public or civic space.
With the techniques of “tactical urbanism,” —painting, plastics, hay bales, and other temporary measures that set off and define an area — that type of space could be created on the short block of Central between the area’s main vehicular arteries.
Consultant David Sousas.
“We want more plazas,” in the city, said Hausladen. He pointed to a number of other areas where precisely these tactical urbanism techniques, including painted bump-outs delineated by temporary barriers, slow traffic, make turning safer, and begin to alter the atmosphere of intersections, such as by Ferry and Riverstreets in Fair Haven.
Tactical urbanism treatments between Chapel and River near Ferry Street.
Creating a temporary plaza (which could become permanent, depending on the outcome and response) would be similar. It would require public buy-in. “The real trick is we need [nearby] property owners to refresh and maintain” the temporary infrastructure, Hausladen added.
Hausladen said the city already has an acknowledgement and interest from the owner of the adjacent and still vacant property on the site of the former Delaney’s Pub, which burned down in 2014. Plans for a new restaurant on that site, with 22 apartments above, were recently approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals.
The plaza concept — as well as any treatments that slow down traffic in vehicles or on foot — are a plus for local businesses, Sousa added.
Both Hausladen and Sousa were intrigued with the idea of coordinating and dovetailing a Central Avenue plaza effort, should that emerge from the study as an agreed upon recommendation, with the activities of the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance, especially the annual ArtWalk in May.
Since both Fountain and Whalley are state roads, whatever changes ultimately are offered would have to be approved by the state, said Sousa. The study purview also includes a look at how the CT Transit bus stops are working, or not working, along the corridor.
The next steps include a meeting in March, specific date to be determined. There, based on the study’s results thus far, “tools” will be discussed. Then another gathering would occur in May where “solutions” will be offered, Sousa said.
Just what IS the status of the plans for the Delaney's site?
The link provided here, ostensibly to document that they were recently approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals, is from April 2018 -- practically two years ago.
Is there more recent information about what is -- or is not -- going on there?