Paul Bass Photo
Scene where driver killed pedestrian in 2017 at York & Frontage.
As many people— seven this year so far including five in August alone — have been killed by cars as by guns this year in New Haven.
That stark statistic along with other more recent outbreaks of a kind of traffic violence — including six pedestrian/cyclist collisions with cars in late September, and a trending national crisis in pedestrian and cyclist deaths — were at the heart of a public hearing at City Hall.
The hearing Tuesday night, held by the Board of Alders Public Safety Committee, was requested by Downtown Alder Abigail Roth and Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter. It was a followup to a similar hearing last year, at which time they learned that there were 92 accidents involving cyclists and 165 involving pedestrians. That also was alarming data.
The August carnage led to a call for action on the “slaughter taking place on our streets.”
Tuesday night a full phalanx of public officials — from the police, transportation, traffic and parking, public works, and engineering departments — faced the alders for three hours of polite yet intense questioning.
While alders expressed gratitude for new bike lanes, painted safety areas, and other improvements, they pressed officials on where and why the accidents are occurring. They asked how the statistics on crashes and the operations of the now ten-year-old Complete Streets improvements program can be augmented and made more accessible to the public. And they sought clarification on data collection, enforcement, and other interventions, large and small, that are in the offing.
Only three members of the public testified, including Williams Street resident Aaron Goode, who termed the situation a full blown crisis demanding from city officials “a full court press.” Goode termed current enforcement lax, contributing to a “permissive atmosphere for distracted driving.”
And he bemoaned that the state’s “vulnerable act has not been used by the police even a single time, not only in New Haven but anywhere in the state. That law has been recently updated, he said, and “I hope our police department has been trained and will deploy [it]. “The ongoing epidemic of traffic violence must be stemmed,” he concluded. (Click here and here to read previous stories on that subject.)
Alders voted Tuesday night to communicate their concerns to the full board and to continue pressing officials, perhaps in more regular meetings of the Complete Streets working group.
Year-To-Date Stats
Allan Appel Photo
Top cops Lts. Rose Dell and Wayne Bullock at City Hal hearing.
In response to a request from the alders, top west side cop Lt. Rose Dell provided the following statistical breakdown covering the period from Jan. 1‑Oct. 2, 2019:
Number of collisions involving cyclists: 33
Number of cyclists killed: 0
Number of cyclists suffering serious injury: 1
Number of times someone was charged for causing a cycling accident and charges brought: 3
Following too close (CGS 14 – 240) – 1 vehicle operator charged
Failure to drive in proper lane (CGS 14 – 236): 1 vehicle operator charged
Unsafe backing (CGS 14 – 243(b) ): 1 vehicle operator charged
Number of collisions involving pedestrians: 133
Number of pedestrians killed: 7*
Number pedestrians suffering serious injury: 14
Number of times someone was charged for causing a pedestrian accident and charges brought: 9
Failure to comply with STC regulations (CGS 14 – 298): 1 pedestrian was charged
Failure to Yield to Pedestrian (CGS 14 – 300(c)): 3 vehicle operators charged
Unsafe movement from stopped position (CGS 14 – 243(a)): 1 vehicle operator charged
Improper use of road/sidewalk by pedestrian (CGS 14 – 300c): 1 pedestrian charged
Failure to obey traffic control signal (CGS 14 – 299): 1 vehicle operator charged
Unsafe backing (CGS 14 – 243(b): 1 vehicle operator charged
* The original document read “4” because it came from incomplete state data, according to Dell.
Patterns in Pedestrians Endangered and Killed
Aaron Goode testifies.
Committee Vice-Chair Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate asked where the fatalities are occurring. Lt. Dell cited the various locations of the seven fatalities so far this year, which included on Ella Grasso Boulevard and Middletown Avenue.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn pointed out that several of those locations are highly trafficked and dangerous areas but they are also state roads, over which the city does not have primary jurisdiction. “We meet with the state to get attention to this,” he said.
Transportation, Traffic Parking Director Doug Hausladen thanked the police for the large enforcement effort against drag racers and dirt bikers, reported in The New York Times this past weekend.
Meadows Alder and Committee Chair Gerald Antunes of Quinnipiac Meadows pressed the police on where on the typical block accidents occur — in the middle of the block, for example, or at intersections?
Dell (who in a previous post investigated traffic accidents) responded that 35 percent of the collisions are at intersections. Antunes pointed out that it is precisely at intersections where school buses generally drop off kids.
Can that routing be changed so that kids would not have to face traffic from four directions? he asked. Officials said that they will work with the Board of Ed to address possible changes.
Roth pointed out that the map provided by Lt. Wayne Bullock, the department’s deputy patrol commander, indicated the highest incidences of collision occur in the Hill and Fair Haven.
“The Hill has the lowest car ownership and highest pedestrian” density, noted Hausladen. He surmised those stats contribute to the problem, but more noted that definitive answers will require more research.
Transparency?
Alders Roth and Winter.
Winter asked where constituents can find crash data.
Hausladen referred to crash info maintained by a state database: ctcrash.uconn.edu. The data there is posted and automatically updated, with the info coming from local police departments such as New Haven’s. Zinn pointed out that the site is not that user friendly, and Hausladen added that the data on the state site is “unfiltered” (unanalyzed). He cautioned that conclusions or inferences from crash data alone might not be accurate.
Winter pressed Zinn and Hausladen to take steps so that regular citizens, not being computer experts, could access and use the data.
“It’s all public information. We’re still trying to make it user friendly. We’ll work on it,” Zinn said.
Complete Streets
Alders Wingate and Antunes.
Roth called attention to this, the tenth anniversary of the inauguration of the Complete Streets program, which enlists departments to respond to public applications for street improvements at dangerous locations for pedestrians and cyclists.
“Let’s celebrate ten years of Complete Streets,’ she said as she read a letter written by East Rock cycling advocate Rob Rocke into the public record, “by focusing on how to change the cycle of traffic violence. We’re not living up to the spirit of Complete Streets.”
Winter pressed Hausladen on how many Complete Streets applications make it from the application stage to action.
“I’d say half,” Hausladen responded.
“And how does that get communicated to the citizens?” Winter followed up. “People complain that they haven’t heard anything for four years. Is there any way it’s tracked?” How many come from neighbors and residents and how many from alders themselves, and how are they prioritized? he asked.
Hausladen said crashes at a location are certainly one but not the only factor in acting on an application. He said he’d get back with answers to the specific question
Zinn said he goes out of his way “to keep my staff shielded from where [an application] comes from, whether it’s Joe Citizen or an alder.”
After the testimony part of the hearing concluded, Winter and Roth both argued that the crash data and Complete Streets data should all be made as available and accessible for the public as possible.
“You might be creating another job to deal with all that data,” Wingate cautioned.
“I don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” Winter concluded. “I just want to make what they have more easily accessible.”
No formal votes were taken on any of these matters.
Alders and officials acknowledged that solutions are complex with a tangle of moving parts, and shared jurisdictions between the city and state, among other challenges.
Winters said he thinks more regular meetings with officials might be in order to keep officials’ feet to the fire to address the issues.
“We really want to solve these problems,” said Zinn. “I’ve got four kids” and plenty of neighborhood speeders.
As he left the meeting, Goode called the discussion “a work in progress.”
Yet he reiterated that we should be shocked that the number of vehicular homicides equals the gun homicides. “It’s all about follow-up and if there’s the political will to address the crisis.”
Speed is the mitigating factor in all traffic collisions. The speed at which someone drives is determined by the driver. So what makes people drive over the limit? Some drivers just choose to drive fast. Ticket them enough and their behavior should change. Some drivers are cluelessly reckless. Ticket them enough and their behavior should change. Some are criminally culpable (dirt-bike and ATV riders on city streets). Jail, fines and take away their wheels.
But what about the city's responsibility? I'm no expert (just investigated a thousand crashes in my decades long career), but I see the city's efforts (bump-outs, rotaries, humps, etc) to mitigate the speed at which people drive well-intentioned but falling short of effective. I'm referring to timed traffic lights. Based only on my own travels, as best I can tell there are four traffic lights on Elm Street from High to Orange that are timed (sometimes) to allow a smooth flow of traffic at a normal speed. I have't found them anywhere else (though there may be some).
Though it's just my perception, it seems the current solution to slowing folks down is to stop and start traffic at almost each intersection. This practice leads to frustrated and always running late drivers, who because of this will hit the gas when they see their smooth travel being interrupted by yet another yellow to red light. It's also adding more smog in the air.
I drive in Manhattan several times a month with less stress than when I drive here. I can travel up or down an avenue for dozens of blocks without being stopped at a single intersection. My speed is determined by the timing of the lights. I'm not going to go faster than the green lights will allow, or I'll have to stop. That's it. No speeding, I get where I'm going sooner, my whip burns less fuel and I'm not playing bumper-cars with anyone else.