Mike Piscitelli, the city’s new traffic czar (pictured at left, with parking enforcement officer Fayan Robinson-Sims), has been chosen to steer the city’s Department of Traffic & Parking into a new domain, expanding its focus beyond cars to the city’s transportation system as a whole.
For the past six years, Piscitelli could be found hard at work at the City Plan Department, working on everything from digital zoning maps to big plans for Long Wharf and the Rt. 34 Corridor.
Last week, he moved to the basement of the Hall of Records, in a department stacked with shiny street signs and monitors showing streaming traffic cams. As acting director of Traffic & Parking, he’s taken over a department that’s been without a permanent director since the fall. In his new job, he’ll oversee 33 full-time staff and a re-drafting of the department’s vision.
In recent years, the city’s transportation programs were spread out between three departments — Engineering, City Plan, and Traffic and Parking. Piscitelli’s new job will be to coordinate those efforts. “Transportation programs by nature require coordination among several city departments and we will now hope to do that more effectively,” said Piscitelli, sitting at his desk this week on his seventh day at the job.
In addition to the traditional functions of catching parking scofflaws and improving traffic safety, the department will expand to look at the city’s transportation assets — the bus system, train lines, the trolley, the airport, the port, bike lanes and pedestrian walkways — as a whole and “make it work better as a system.”
The new vision is currently pending aldermanic approval. The aldermanic Legislation Committee just approved an order authorizing the economic development director to reorganize the department to “facilitate the consolidation and coordination of city transportation functions.” Doing so would require “necessary adjustments in job descriptions and salaries” for departmental staff.
The current structure of the traffic and parking department “does not effectively address” the changing needs of the city, explains the order, which passes to the full board Monday, with a final vote on May 21.
In an era of mounting gas prices, Piscitelli touted New Haven’s “superior transportation lure” — especially its bike lanes, pedestrian access and expansion of rail service from New Haven up to Hartford. Getting people out of their cars, and “encouraging widespread acceptance of these facilities, is a core part of our work program right now.”
Of course, he’ll also oversee the day-to-day motions of the department’s most prominent face — those who catch parking scofflaws. Asked about the city’s touted crackdown on those who let their meters expire downtown, Piscitelli said the department isn’t hiring more parking enforcement officers to do so, just making sure the rules are enforced. That means handing out tickets not just from 9 to 5, but during all hours of the parking day. A recent focus has been rush hour on Whitney Avenue, where parking lanes are meant to be cleared.
Another focus will be expanding use of the ParkSmart Card, which the city hopes to combine with a new municipal ID.
While not working to ensure as many people as possible start using the smart card, he’ll use his City Plan experience to focus on the same goals he’s been working on for the past six years: Improving the transportation system in a way that “grows the economy, improves quality of life and contributes to New Haven’s sense of place.”
Good motives but there is much to be done. First of all, the city desperately needs more bicycle lanes. Also, how about creating a shared sense of community by combining local transit with Yale's system by allowing Yale students to ride City buses for free (with an annual offset paid by the University) and better-publicizing schedules to students? Transit is about much more than just getting people around, it contributes to the creation of a place.