Description
Deep tire-bursting pothole(s) have been in Farnum Drive for months. To swerve to miss them is to (almost) hit the bicyclers and joggers who shouldn't be on this narrow road anyway.
Save a biker and my tires. REPAIR THE HOLES!!!
Reporter
Deep tire-bursting pothole(s) have been in Farnum Drive for months. To swerve to miss them is to (almost) hit the bicyclers and joggers who shouldn't be on this narrow road anyway.
Save a biker and my tires. REPAIR THE HOLES!!!
12 Comments
Rob Rocke (Registered User)
Hamden Help Desk (Guest)
Swerver (Guest)
Hamden Help Desk: If you look at the map, the north half of Farnum Drive is in Hamden. If New Haven is responsible for the Hamden section of the road, then someone should advise them.
Rob Rocke: I am a biker too, and a runner, but because I want to live to see my children grow up I don't do either on I-95 . . . or on Farnum Drive.
Hamden Help Desk (Guest)
juli (Registered User)
David Streever (Registered User)
Swerver
Farnum Drive is not I-95, and is instead, a "Park Road" (as Hamden Help Desk is pointing out) which is restricted to slow-speed, local traffic.
If you are uncertain as to the differences, I-95 is a high-speed expressway with many lanes of traffic, and Farnum Drive is a slow-speed local road with only one travel lane in each direction and no passing.
I assume you are aware of this because you state that Farnum Drive is "narrow". I'm a little confused by your apparent confusion between it and I-95.
Tom Smith (Registered User)
David Streever (Registered User)
Tom,
How many people have been seriously injured or killed on Farnum Drive in the last year?
0.
How many people have been killed on I-95 last year alone?
Dozens.
I don't see anyone demanding that you be banned from using I-95 in your car--despite the far higher likelihood of death--so your argument is a little false.
This is a free country. People are free to assume low levels of personal risk, and do every day.
Cigarette smoke kills more people per year than bicycle accidents. Guns kill more people than bicycle accidents. Traffic accidents kill more people than bicycle accidents. Knife murders kill more people than bicycle accidents.
Instead of telling others what roads they can use for transportation, why don't you work on stopping homicides committed with knives? You'd save an extra 1600 people per year.
Obviously, I'm being facetious, and I hope I'm not being offensive. I'm just trying to highlight very clearly why your logic is really off in this.
Swerver (Guest)
Bikers and runners (and again, I AM BOTH) just do not get it. The point, David, is that I, even though I do not travel Farnam Drive that often, have TWICE seen bikers hit by cars there. (They are not hit on I-95 because they have obvious and far better sense than to get onto I-95.) Farnam Drive fools you. But, it is very narrow, with no shoulders, and very curvy. Do I think bikers and runners have a right there? OF COURSE THEY DO. By all sense of what is right, they have more right to be there than frigging cars do.
But the fragile body doesn't care about who is right, or who has the right. The point that Tom Smith and I make about being careful is a reflection Sancho Panza made to Don Quixote: "It doesn't matter whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone; it's going to be bad for the pitcher".
Be careful, biker/pitchers – those three thousand pound stones move very quickly.
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
It's incredible that we have such a beautiful park road that can not be enjoyed by walkers and cyclists. Many persons have told me that they won't bike or walk on this road, particularly the stretch between Orange Street and State Street, because they consider it to be unsafe.
In general, far too many of the roads in New Haven are not considered safe to bike on - the CARE project did a scientific survey on this topic a couple years ago and found that 70% of residents in some neighborhoods felt that way.
I enjoy the road for biking or walking now and then, even with the dangerous potholes and speeding traffic, but would be willing to bet that the average resident avoids it in its current configuration.
Again, this is a park, not a highway. To begin with, the speed limit on this road should be reduced to a strict 20 miles per hour. The speed limits can be painted on the road surface, and occasional tickets issued. In Darien, CT, very low speed limits are posted on roads like this, and there are self-enforcing "speed humps" on roads like this that leave a very wide paved area to the side, where cyclists normally ride anyways, for cyclists to pass by the "hump" without having to worry about the shallow pavement grade change (if a cyclist does happen to ride over a very shallow hump at 20 miles per hour, it is not a problem). Also, where there are "straightaway" sections that enable speeding, the lane width can be narrowed using a stripe of paint.
Apparently, people in Darien care deeply about the attractiveness, usability, and safety of their streets and parks, but we in New Haven don't.
Swerver (Guest)
I biked the road once, and that was enough for me.
It would be a major project (and New Haven can't even fill potholes that have been getting deeper for months) but building a walking/running/biking path on one side of the drive would be a wonderful thing. Beyond the expense, some trees would be lost, of course.
Meanwhile, how about some speed bumps? LOTS of speed bumps? Cars would stop using the road as a cut-through (though those taking the route as a scenic drive still could), and the bumps would have no impact on any other kinds of users.
Closed SeeClickFix Admin (Verified Official)