Description
This is what the street looks like at 9:30AM. Massive excess of road capacity which leads to speeding, combined with poor conditions for pedestrians and cyclists.
A buffered bike lane, which is a standard in NYC and Philadelphia now, would make the street safer for all road users by narrowing it and reducing speed.
This is a very popular bike route and with an actual lane, bike use would triple overnight (based on experiences of other cities that do this). This would free up more parking for local businesses to thrive and hire more staff.
18 Comments
Paul (Guest)
It's a three lane road with parking on either side. And you took the photo when the light was red, and when the lights are synced out of order like New Haven stupidly does, nobody can go fast anywhere.
How does it let people hire more staff?
Anstress Farwell (Registered User)
Citizen (Guest)
I definitely agree that this section of the road needs work. I cannot speak for the bicycle traffic, since I use a different route every day, but at least wider sidewalks can be helpful. I commonly run into "pedestrian jams" on Church St (mostly because of the high volume of people waiting at the bus stop who crowd the sidewalk).
Anstress - If only. The problem is that CTTransit buses do not yet have GPS technology, and until that happens, real-time bus information is not available.
guest (Guest)
BB (Registered User)
Ryan (Registered User)
Nathalie (Guest)
I have experienced different problems on different sections of the street. There are 3 main sections: between George and Chapel, Chapel and Elm/Grand, and Elm/Grand and Trumbull. Mainly there is room for a bike lane on the 2 first ones, but not really on the 3rd on. Frankly, 2/3 of bike lane would be a great start, and it would train the drivers towards respecting bikes better. Bike lanes have successfully changed drivers behavior over the years. Now, i have to say, still about 90 % of the bicyclists I see on the road don't respect road signals ( stop signs and lights). If we want to make the roads safer, i believe we need to follow the same rules. But that's a different discussion, i'd love to follow up with with anybody serious about it.
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Would anyone be willing to submit a Complete Streets Request Form to add bike lanes on this section of Church Street? Has anyone spoken with Alderman Hausladen regarding this issue?
It looks like bike lanes are planned on the lower section of Church (from South Frontage to George Street) through the Route 34 project, but I'm not sure if there are plans to continue them beyond that.
Local Rider (Guest)
Doug Hausladen (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Resident3 (Guest)
Here's what it usually looks like. There is more than enough room here for better infrastructure to serve pedestrians, bus riders and cyclists. With the opening of Gateway, we desperately need more room for pedestrians in this area.
It is an absurd distortion of our City's "complete streets" policy that the sidewalks are overcrowded (with pedestrians and cyclists who rightly feel the road is too dangerous to bike on) but the road is empty.
cyclista (Guest)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
juli (Registered User)
Rob Smuts (Registered User)
Acknowledged NHPD Traffic Enforcement (Verified Official)
Closed Manager of Operations, Process Improvement - Transportation, Traffic, & Parking (Verified Official)