Description
The crosswalk at Bradley and Orange Streets is consistently ignored, today by New Haven's own Police Department (car # NH-167), who claims to enforcing the traffic laws these days, though I have yet to see it having a broader impact in my neighborhood. (Content removed here by admin...flagged as inappropriate for name calling.)
11 Comments
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
I saw a car pass through and honk at pedestrians in the crosswalks. The pedestrians were forced to run for safety. Not acceptable.
Other cities, including Boston and many others, display in-street xwalk signs throughout the winter, even in the middle of snowstorms. Not sure the snowplowing is really a reason to remove them for 5 months out of the year. Hopefully, also, we'll see a lot more installed this spring, including one at Bradley and Orange! I think the city's "test" of 5 signs last fall was a major success.
Roland (Guest)
Anonymous (Guest)
Eva Geertz (Guest)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
As someone who has been mobility impaired in the past, I strongly agree and sympathize with your points, Eva.
The only real solution to preventing more injuries and deaths is to design crosswalks and streets in a way that eliminates risk. There are many ways to do this, and I know that the City is familiar with them. Medians, raised intersections, narrow lanes, bollards, speed tables are just a few of the methods. Visit London, and you'll see that residential streets, like those in East Rock, are marked with top speeds of 12mph, Streets are designed in ways that ensure drivers don't go much faster than that, because they just can't.
The fact that our crosswalks are risky is a major deterrent to getting people to walk outside and enjoy their neighborhoods. This is a major contributor to obesity, poor health, crime, and other problems, since residents -- particularly those with limited mobility such as the very young and very old -- are far less likely to walk more than a few blocks on a regular basis. Jane Jacobs talks about exactly why you need both very young people and very old people on a street, at various times of day, to make it safe and vibrant.
Bottom line is that if we designed crosswalks and streets so that they were safe and eliminated risk, our society would dramatically improve. Unfortunately, it will take many years to rebuild streets, unless we all work together to muster the political will to improve them much more quickly, like what London has done over the past few years.
At the very least, future road improvement projects should be built in ways that support the community.
Perhaps you could call your Alderperson, or the City government, and ask how they are coming along on the Complete Streets Design Manual that the Board of Aldermen unanimously passed legislation to require, back in October 2008?
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
The in-street pedestrian signs should be in place year-round, like in Boston. Use large sand barrels or bolt them in, then build permanent medians when funding allows.
Boston gets much more snow than New Haven, so the city's decision to remove them for half of the year due to snowplowing doesn't sit well.
BB (Registered User)
Hey Mark,
I thought the issue is that they don't want the plows to have go around them?
Αναγνωρισμένο CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
I think this Xwalk is particularly bad because cars are speeding after flying off the I-91 offramp (or off of the wide downtown streets, like Church, Elm, State and Whitney, that are almost as bad).
If you read the book "Traffic", it talks about studies showing how drivers need time to adjust their perception of speed when flying off highways and coming into a slower zone. It typically takes several minutes (10-20 blocks) before they psychologically adjust to the fact they are no longer driving on an interstate.
Perhaps calming the offramp would have a positive impact on this crosswalk?
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
I saw that in-road pedestrian signs have been placed all around Southern Connecticut State University. I saw several there this past weekend.
What's taking these so long for the ones on Orange and State to be put back in service?
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)