Thomas MacMillan Photo
With a multicolored, multi-level intersection redesign in the works, City Engineer Dick Miller is setting the “table” for safer streets in East Rock.
After months of design and study, Miller is prepping to send New Haven’s first “speed table” intersection improvement plan out for construction bids. As soon as next summer, the T intersection at Edwards and Livingston Streets will be raised about six inches. That “table” will — like one big speed hump — effectively force drivers to step on the brakes.
The intersection will also feature planted medians, textured and multicolored crosswalks, and yellow-patterned paving, all of which are designed to send a message to drivers: Slow Down.
Miller said that’s an important message for Edwards Street, a heavily used artery in East Rock. Despite bumpy, cracked pavement, cars often fly down Edwards on their way to and from Yale. During a recent visit to the corner in question, Miller pointed out several cars that he estimated were going at least 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour.
Miller estimates the project will cost $300,000, paid for through municipal bonding. Work is expected to begin this spring and take about three months to complete.
Miller said he doesn’t know if the speed table is the first in Connecticut. Kevin Nursick, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said he doesn’t know of any state-owned speed tables in Connecticut.
The speed table project also includes the installation of two speed humps on Edwards between Orange and Livingston Streets and between Whitney Avenue and Livingston Street. That’s so drivers on Edwards will have to slow down even before they hit Livingston, Miller said.
In addition to physical changes, it’s also important to have visual cues to slow down, Miller said. That’s where the plants and change in colors in the intersection comes in. The new crosswalks will be similar to the textured crosswalks recently installed on Whalley Avenue, Miller said.
What’s more, the intersection plan calls for the planting of several new trees along Edwards. Those will also have a traffic-calming effect, Miller said.
Plus, there will be curb “bump-outs” at the two corners. That will create room to improve the relationship between the street and an ancient tree, which is bursting through the pavement.
Taken all together, the improvements will create a whole new driver “experience” that will decrease speeds, Miller said.
It’s part of the city’s complete streets efforts, which aim to calm traffic and facilitate multi-modal transportation in the city, Miller said.
The city has been working on plans to improve the Edwards/Livingston intersection for about two years, Miller said. The engineering department looked into the possibility of a mini-roundabout there, even marking where it might go with white paint on the asphalt. But the intersection proved too small, Miller said. Still, the speed table will feature a slight mound in the middle. It’ll be high enough to force drivers to curve slightly, shedding more speed, but low enough that school buses will be able to drive over it to take the turn.
Dick Miller.
On the one stop sign at the corner, someone has stenciled a small “Please” underneath the word “STOP.” Miller said people tend to roll through the stop sign, which can be especially dangerous given the high speed on Edwards.
Rob Smuts, the city’s chief administrative officer, said speeds are so bad on Edwards that years ago, when extensive sewer work left the street lumpy, neighbors asked the city not to repave it. They liked the traffic-calming effect of a bumpy road, Smuts said.
One of those neighbors was Frank Chapman. He lives at 204 Edwards St., just a couple doors away from the intersection. An architect and former deputy head of the City Plan Department, Chapman said he’s wholeheartedly behind the speed table.
Edwards Street is about a mile long, with only two non‑T intersections between State and Prospect Streets, Chapman said. “The blocks are long,” and drivers take advantage of that to step on the gas, Chapman said. “It’s an invitation for cars to go fast.”
From his living room on Edwards Street, where he and his wife have lived since 1978, Chapman called the speed table a “brilliant plan.” He said he and his neighbors are committed to maintaining flowers or evergreen shrubs planted in the new medians.
“We think it will have a very positive effect on slowing traffic,” he said.
Next, Chapman has his eye on the intersection of Edwards and Orange Streets, where he said a roundabout should be installed. “I laid it out and I know it would work.”
Dick we need traffic calming on State Street in Cedar Hill...we call it frogger lane.