So responded cyclists after the unveiling of a multi-year plan to make downtown friendlier to bikes and pedestrians.
Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, a New York-based city planning firm, is finishing up a study of how to make downtown more amenable to bikers and walkers. More than 50 people showed up at the Hall of Records on Thursday evening to hear what they’ve come up with.
The consultants described a three-phase plan involving new bike lanes, improved walk signals, and new traffic rules. All of the ideas received the enthusiastic support of the crowd. But most agreed that it was just the beginning. The biking enthusiasts would like to see the extension of biking infrastructure to all areas of New Haven, not just the central business district.
The Plan
The Nelson/Nygaard study was funded by the South Central Council of Governments, an organization concerned land use and transportation issues.
Michael King (at center in picture at top), a staffer at Nelson/Nygaard, said that his firm’s plan for the city has three main goals: safer pedestrian crossings, a network of bike routes, and better pedestrian and bicycle connections to New Haven’s train stations.
To these ends, King presented a three-phase plan for downtown New Haven.
The first phase would prohibit right turns on red by cars; put in bike lanes or “sharrows“ on most downtown streets; and paint “bike boxes“ at intersections.
Phase two includes upgrades in pedestrian crossing signals and the conversion of some one-way streets to two-way in order to ease congestion.
The third phase would include more established bike paths on Elm, State, and Grove streets and the extension of the Farmington Canal bike route.
This plan won’t be finalized for another month, after suggestions from Thursday’s meeting are incorporated. The proposal could take several years to fully implement, depending on budget restrictions.
City traffic czar Mike Piscitelli said the changes will be paid for with city government money and a grant from the New Haven Transit District, an independent, federally funded agency.
Asked how much the project would cost, Piscitelli responded, “A lot. It will cost a lot.” Full implementation would take five years and $5 million, he said.
As for a time frame for the project, Piscitelli said he is “very much interested in beginning construction in 2009, if the funding holds.”
A Baby Step
“This project is — I hate to say it — a little bit of a baby step,” King told the meeting. He said the city was eager to simply “get something in the ground this year.” Larger ideas, like removing parking to make room for bikes, “will require a little more political muscle.”
Following King’s presentation, attendees were encouraged to draw ideas for bike and pedestrian improvements onto maps of downtown New Haven. Several members of the New Haven biking advocacy group, Elm City Cycling (ECC), gathered around a map of State Street.
“This is beautiful,” ECC board member William Kurtz said, looking at the plans laid out on the table. “But it doesn’t address the need to get in and out of town… This is all about downtown and Yale.”
“We’ve had this conversation many times before,” Kurtz continued. “Two years ago I went to a planning meeting just like this,” where he pressed for more bike lanes in and out of town at that time.
“From my house in West Haven, it’s three miles to downtown,” Kurtz explained, saying this was a reasonable distance to ride. He would bike into town every day if not for the stress of dealing with Kimberly Avenue.
Alderman Carl Goldfield was also disappointed by the exclusive focus on downtown New Haven.
“I was hoping to see Goffe or Whalley,” he said.
When the weather is good, Goldfield rides his bike into town from his home in Beaver Hill. He said he takes Goffe Terrace in the morning and Whalley Avenue, at night even though he doesn’t like riding so close to the speeding traffic. (The lack of east-west bike routes has been an ongoing complaint among New Haven cyclists.)
Goldfield and Kurtz weren’t the only ones with suggestions for expansion. At the end of the night, King said that the main thing that he’d heard from people that evening was: “Good stuff. Let’s do more.”
“Everybody always wants more,” he said. King explained that the parameters of the study had been the center of town. “They said ‘focus on downtown.’”
Predictions
“It’s nice to see so many people. It shows that there’s certainly political will for these changes. That’s going to be needed, because at the end of the day these are policy decisions,” King said. “Everything is a political battle.”
Holly Parker, director of sustainable transportation systems at Yale, suggested that the political battle might come later, as cyclists press for more drastic changes, like the removal of parking spots for bike lanes, or the removal of car lanes for traffic islands. “There was no talk tonight about about taking out parking or a travel lane. That’s when it will get … interesting.”
Parker, noting that New Haven’s cycling community has “so much passion,” offered a prediction. “In five years we won’t recognize the streets as they are now.”
Safe Streets activist Mark Abraham (at left in picture, with Piscitelli at right) had a prediction of his own. He said that New Haven could transform itself into a pedestrian mecca. He mentioned Boston, saying that it had “branded” itself as a city for walking, drawing tourists to the city just to stroll the streets and parks. “New Haven could be that place,” Abraham said. “People will fly into New Haven from Europe just to walk around.”
<i> King explained that the parameters of the study had been the center of town. "They said 'focus on downtown.'"</i>
Who , in the city, is "they"? Who gave the order to focus on downtown and why?