DOT vs. ​“TOD” Showdown At Union Station

The outgoing Malloy administration was at Union Station Tuesday putting plans for a new parking garage on a fast track, while the incoming Lamont administration signaled it wants to hear more from New Haveners calling to slow the construction train.

Those were the latest developments in the decades-long saga of a planned second garage to handle the overflow of cars at the train station.

New Haven officials have pressed the state to build a second garage since the early days of the Rowland administration in the 1990s. Outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy finally delivered on getting the project funded — and received an earful from both government officials and active citizens who trashed the design and sought a retail and/or bus depot component. The state retooled the design a bit. (Read about that here.)

In its waning weeks in office, Malloy’s Department of Transportation (DOT) is moving the plan forward as quickly as possible. Toward that end, officials showed up in Union Station at rush hour Tuesday for a ​“listening” session with commuters, a necessary step toward advancing their latest design of the planned seven-story, 1,015-space garage planned on what is now a 260-space surface lot at the train station. They say they expect a final design approval by the coming spring and the beginning of construction bidding in the fall.

But by that time, the DOT, which has become a a dirty word in much of New Haven for its neglect of the bus system and perceived car-oriented (versus pedestrian or bike-friendly) road designs, will have a new boss: Gov.-Elect Ned Lamont, who takes office Jan. 9.

Lamont’s lieutenant-governor-elect, Susan Bysiewicz, was asked Tuesday about demands from prominent development voices in New Haven to halt the garage project and from Mayor Toni Harp at least to modify it to include more ​“transit-oriented development” (TOD) like apartments or offices and/or stores.

Bysiewicz said the incoming administration is ready to listen.

Meanwhile, at the same time as the DOT ​“listening” session” at the train station, New Haven’s Development Commission was meeting a few blocks away. Members made clear that they see the new Malloy/DOT garage design as old thinking that should never see the light of the day.

DOT vs. TOD

Bysiewicz fielded the garage question during an appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven program,” during which she also outlined her plans to link state businesses with foreign trading partners and to ensure an accurate U.S. census count in office. (In the interview, Bysiewicz also demonstrated her uncanny command of Connecticut retail politics by correctly identifying, in a pop quiz, the name of the Democratic town chair of the town of Scotland, Susan Smith, as well as the current state of the town committee).

In general, it was too early for her to weigh in on specifics of the new administration’s plans for issues important to New Haven, beyond promising ​“transparency.”

But she said she did want to weigh in on the garage question with a general commitment to TOD.

“I’ll say that this probably always happens: At the end of an administration, an administration has some projects that it they want to keep pushing through because they have made some commitments,” Bysiewicz said. ​“The new administration may have different opinions.”

She attributed New Haven’s revival in part on its commitment to TOD, singling out the construction of the ​“Green” 360 State St. tower across from the State Street train station and the attendant foot traffic and business development. She noted plans for new apartments near Meriden’s new train station, and spoke of the boom in housing near stations in Fairfield and Norwalk: ​“They’ve seen huge numbers of people move into new apartments that are literally within a block.”

“Ned and I have been clear that we want to encourage transit-oriented development,” Bysiewicz said. ​“And we want to work with the chief elected officials on this.”

Suburban Commuters vs. Cityfolk

At a ​“listening session” at the train station on Tuesday morning, opinions remained split.

“Fix mass transit so people can get to Union Station without a car,” declared one committed bike rider who regularly commutes on two wheels from her home in Fair Haven Heights.

Make room for more cars by building a second garage, said one Meriden commuter who can never find parking on Wednesday afternoons because drivers have parked in big numbers to catch the train down to Manhattan for the Broadway theater matinees.

DOT officials heard those two poles of opinion, and a good many in between, from about 20 commuters between 6 and 9 a.m. during their first round of interviews at the train station.

Project engineer John Wyskiel and Jeff Parker, from the design firm CHA Consulting, stood in the western alcove of the station’s main hall during Tuesday morning’s rush hour with placards illustrating the proposed structure, a sign-in sheet to receive mailings and requests to leave comments. They and other DOT officials planned to conduct a second listen Tuesday evening between 5 and 9 p.m.

It’s not a formal public commenting session; there have been several of those in the run-up to the current configuration. But Parker said public input will be accepted through Jan. 8, and the best way to offer it is to write the project engineer .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call at 860 – 594-3303.

The Fair Haven Heights bike rider, who did not want to be identified, conceded the need for more parking space at Union Station. But he called the new design ​“a big hulking structure” that’s outdated, from the point of view of transit-oriented-development, even before it’s built.

Jeff Parker, from the DOT design firm, estimated that of the 20 people he interacted with during the three-hour session, about a dozen gave high marks to the proposed garage, largely because of the new capacity.

Carolyn Gould, of North Haven, said she likes likes the proposed new ease of parking, although she expressed an aesthetic reservation: To build the new garage on the other, the southern side of the existing Union Station, would give the entire configuration better balance, she said.

Supporters of the new garage sampled Tuesday seemed to be largely non-New Haven residents, while skeptics appeared to be Elm City dwellers.

An exception was Westvillian Todd Foley. He commutes to the station on his bike from Westville. He said he likes that the revised DOT plan nearly doubles the number of bike paring spaces to 240 and brings the that whole feature indoors. ​“Bikes now get wet,” he said, then rushed off across the center of the station’s great hall to catch his train.

Hausladen Crashes The Party

While Parker and Wyskiel chatted with commuters, city Transit and Parking Authority Chief Doug Hausladen showed up and carried on a spirited conversation about the wisest use of $60 million with Chris Bonsignore, DOT’s principal engineer for facilities design, who dropped by around 8 a.m.

Hausladen noted the absence of any street-level commercial space in the new building. Bonsignore and Parker both said that had been explored but according to current flood maps, the entire station is in a floodplain. So any new commercial site would have to be elevated three to four feet, with access from higher up within the parking structure.

Hausladen expressed skepticism about that point, as commercial development has been a long-time reality in Long Wharf, for example.

“New commercial development?” said Wyskiel.

“I know you guys have a big drainage plan in the works” for the whole downtown and Long Wharf area, added Bonsignore.

Parker was at pains to point out some new features in the plan, touching on new urbanism’s street activation mantra, that even skeptics of the proposed plan might not have noticed. Parker said the designers are taking into consideration the Union Avenue Complete Streets application, which foresees, for example, a bike lane, and lots of pedestrian traffic. To that end, a canopy has been added in the design over a widened sidewalk area on Union Avenue. He also pointed out room on either side of the driveway into the new structure, where kiosks or pop-up stores might plant themselves.

The street and sidewalk under the canopy on Union Avenue might lend themselves also to food trucks and other non-permanent commercial activity.

Hausladen remained unsold. He questioned, as have Development Commission member Pedro Soto and New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell, the pedestrian bridge linking the new garage to the old and then by elevators down to the tracks.

“That’s a $30 million bridge that will bypass the station,” he said. ​“And a pedestrian bridge that doesn’t go to Long Wharf, by, for example, a tunnel. This idea well might be a missed opportunity of gargantuan proportions.”

Hausladen’s point: By bypassing the interior of the station, the envisioned pedestrian bridges divert potential customers for retail outlets. Hausladen said that the station is poised to send out a request for proposals to help re-brand the station and to reconceive the commercial experience there. ​“All our tenancies are month to month,” he added.

He estimated that the whole re-branding and internal re-design process could cost between $5 and $10 million. The city currently has no money to pay for that, he said. He’d like to think that might come out of $60 million saved by not building the garage, or at least from the $30 million portion of the pedestrian bridge.

Hausladen also pointed out the sorry state of sidewalks on Route One/Water Street. ​“With 692 cars at rush hour, how do the police handle this?” he asked rhetorically. ​“We’d [also] like to spend some of this $60 million in the Hill rather than for this antiquated, carbon-based mobility technology that we will be embarrassed to tell our grandchildren we participated in.”

Hausladen and the DOT officials spoke politely. But the city’s irritation, diplomatically managed in the person of Hausladen, was palpable. ​“Sixty million for 692 [net additional] parking spots. That’s $60,000 per spot,” he declared.

Parker said the official comment period for this, the 60 percent design phase of the project, will end on Jan. 8. The 90 percent design will be finalized, he added, in the first quarter of next year.

“This is a call for the new governor in the first 100 days: What’s the vision?” Hausladen said. ​“20th or 21st century?”

Commission Position

Over at City Hall, members of the Development Commission answered that question.

The proposed new Union Station parking garage took up the latter 20 minutes of the meeting, held on the second floor of City Hall.

New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell pitched the commissioners on the environmental, economic development and traffic congestion downsides to the state’s proposal to build the second garage.

She said the $60 million projected cost for the new garage could be better spent on converting downtown roads from one-way to two-way; on rebuilding State Street to be more amenable to pedestrians, bicyclists, and retailers; and even on building a trolley that would connect Union Station and downtown.

“There are a million and one things that that money could be used for” other than building a new thousand-space garage, she said. ​“We don’t want to put money into something that’s harmful.”

Acting Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said his office is most concerned with ensuring that the state follows through on the commitments it made to the city in 2017 when state Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Secretary Benjamin Barnes and Mayor Toni Harp struck a deal to extend the city’s lease on managing the current Union Station garage.

Some of those promises, he said, include bicycle and pedestrian improvements to Water Street; an effort to ​“remerchandise” the existing Union Station garage, adding new retailers to make that garage a better customer experience; as well as provide the complete proposed designs for the new garage for city review. Piscitelli said the city only received the final proposed designs for the new garage on Friday, and that his office has not yet had time to review them.

The rest of the Development Commission was less sanguine on the prospect of taking a prime piece of downtown real estate and turning it into a seven-story parking garage.

“When you really start to look into this,” Development Commission Chair Pedro Soto said, ​“the [state’s] rationale starts getting weaker and weaker and weaker.” He suggested the state should consider building the garage at the new West Haven Metro-North train station instead.

Development Commissioner John Martin said he is skeptical that a new garage will fit well with other proposed developments in the area, like a new residential and commercial complex planned for the former site of Church Street South.

“We’re really gonna be kicking ourselves in five to 10 years,” he said, if New Haven is stuck with a big hulking parking garage in the middle of a hopefully revitalized pedestrian and public transit-oriented community around Union Station.

An earlier version of this article follows: 

Message To Lamont: Ditch Station Garage

As the state prepares to return to New Haven for feedback on a planned new Union Station garage, some leading local voices are questioning much of the idea — or whether it makes sense to build it at all.

The state Department of Transportation (DOT) has two ​“listening sessions” planned for Tuesday, one at morning rush hour, the other at evening rush hour, on the planned seven-story, 1,015-space garage planned on what is now a 260-space surface at the train station. Click here for details on the events.

New Haven officials have pressed the state to build a second garage since the early days of the Rowland administration in the 1990s. Outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy finally delivered on getting the project funded — and received an earful from both government officials and active citizens who trashed the design and sought a retail and/or bus depot component. The state retooled the design a bit. (Read about that here.)

Now at least two prominent voices in New Haven’s development debates are asking Gov.-Elect Ned Lamont to consider ditching the project and using the $60 million budgeted for it in other ways to improve mass transit and public access to the waterfront.

The message came from Pedro Soto, who chairs city government’s Development Commission; and Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell. The delivered the message during an appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

On ​“Dateline,” Farwell and Soto argued that times and needs have changed, and that instead of more parking, the station needs ​“transit-oriented development” like new housing, offices, and/or stores right by the rail line. They also advocated for using the $60 million allocated for the garage to improve bus service in town, to link the station to Long Wharf through either a walk way above or a tunnel below the train tracks. (Click here to read an 11-page summary on the issue Farwell previously prepared.)

Farwell also argued that a commercial building on the site planned for the new garage would produce tax revenue and bring more activity to the area.

Mayor Toni Harp Monday said she’d like to hear more about Farwell’s and Soto’s argument.

On her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Mayor Monday” program, she said her understanding is that the state DOT is gung-ho about advancing the garage project in the last days of the Malloy administration. ​“They’re going to move forward with it no matter what we do,” Harp remarked. ​“I honestly believe they’re building the garage for their workers” at the rail yard.

From the outset, she noted, ​“we always wanted other things” in the garage besides auto parking. Like Farwell and Soto, Harp said she believes a commercial building could be a good idea on that lot, given plans to rebuild housing on the former Church Street South lot across the street.

She did note that when she drives to Union Station to take a train, the existing lot is often full. So for now there seems to be a need for more parking, she said. However, with predictions that people may rely less on personal cars in the future, the garage plan as it exists may be outdated.

DOT spokesman Judd Everhart said Monday that the department did hold a discussion with Harp several months ago about expediting the project.

“Semi-final plans were delivered to the City last week,” Everhart reported. ​“The Union Avenue streetscape and bike/ped/bus/taxi/parking layout in front of the station/garage remains unresolved.”

Everhart said rail yard employees have ample parking in the rail yard itself and would not be parking in a new garage.

Final plans for the garage are due this coming spring, according to Everhart, and bidding could begin in the fall.

Click on the video above to watch the full episode of WNHH FM’s Mayor Monday.”

Click on the video above to watch the discussion with Farwell and Soto on ​“Dateline New Haven,” which also covered the legacy of departing city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson and where they’d like to see development heading in town now.

This episode of ​“Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.