Legislation capping two years of traffic-calming efforts gained unanimous approval by aldermen at their full board meeting Thursday night.
The Complete Streets law aims to minimize traffic deaths by enabling all modes of transit to coexist safely on city streets. (Click here to read about the complete streets law, introduced by Alders Erin Sturgis-Pascale and Roland Lemar.)
The legislation creates a Complete Streets Steering Committee to help the city develop a transportation policy; establish a process to include community members in the planning of new streets; and educate citizens on the rules of the road. It also calls for more traffic enforcement.
The city kicked off an educational campaign last weekend: Click here to read about the inaugural event, and the plethora of groups that came together to make it happen.
Also at aldermen’s meeting Thursday:
City Presses State For Noise Barriers
By a unanimous vote, aldermen pressed state transportation officials on the need to put up sound barriers along I‑95 “immediately.”
Their plea came after the state chopped down trees along Interstate I‑95, leaving a Hill neighborhood park (pictured) exposed to the deafening rush of highway noise. At a Department of Transportation meeting last month, an official responded that it might be “a couple years” before neighbors, and a local school, would see relief from the highway and construction noise. (Click here to read about that.)
Thursday, aldermen approved a City Plan Commission report that urged the state to fund and design the barriers “immediately,” north of the Howard Avenue Bridge. Hill aldermen and the city Parks Commission have passed similar resolutions over the past month, too.
Aldermen were urged to approve Thursday’s lobbying effort before neighbors sit down with State Sen. Toni Harp and DOT officials to talk about the issue next week.
Resolved: Bikes Belong
With unanimous approval, aldermen welcomed grants to fund the Union Station Bicycle Interconnect Project.
Over the next year, the city plans to use $156,000 in grant money to create bike lanes connecting Union Station to downtown and the Hill and East Rock neighborhoods as well as the Farmington Canal Greenway.
Plans also include an additional 100 bike parking spaces at Union Station (pictured).
The project is made possible by: $10,000 from the Bikes Belong Foundation; $131,000 in grant funds from the South Central Regional Council of Governments; and $15,000 from the New Haven Parking Authority. (Click here for a past article).
Aldermen also approved temporarily closing Waterfront Street so that used cars may be transported across the street, loaded onto ferries and shipped to Africa.
Health and Safety/Sound Barrier
I would like to point out that the City Point Historic District is a unique and distinct neighborhood, on the South side of the Howard Ave. bridge. A former Oyster Village with well preserved architecture and a maritime atmosphere. They should not be forgotten, when deciding where and when to put up a Health and Safety/Sound Barrier.
Noise tests were conducted by DOT before the trees were cut down and it was determined that levels from the highway exceeded acceptable noise standards. Now that the trees are gone, toxic dust/gases and deafening noise blast in all directions, including towards the Sound School, which sit well within the effected area.
The standard of living has been lowered by DOT's actions. City Point Neighbors (several, separate organizations) had been engaging them for up to seven years, expressing the need for barriers. They chose to ignore the pleas, cut down the trees without warning and attach any possible barriers to a Long Wharf project that may not be completed for 10-15 years, if at all.
Some will say that the DOT has the right to do what they want with the highway and they should. City Point is not arguing that DOT should not widen or improve the highway. They (DOT) have however, admitted that when they are done with the highway, traffic will have increased so much, that it will not solve the congestion. City Point is just asking for respect and consideration when making the plans that will hurt people living near the project.
DOT can help improve City Point, the property values and the standard of living with such a simple and relatively inexpensive solution of barriers. When will they come through again to put up a barrier? In 20 years, 50 or 100 years?
It won't get any cheaper to put up them up in the future. It will not help Bayview Park when, or if they do come to rip up the park (again), to finally put up the barriers. I must also remind everyone that at least two Tractor Trailors have gone off the highway, through the chain-link fence and into the playground. Children play in the noisy, dusty, unhealthy and dangerous environment that can and must be improved by barriers.
Now is the time for Connecticut and the DOT to act to put up a barrier, on BOTH SIDES of the highway!
A Friend of City Point