I agree. Seems too hard to police/monitor. It has a lot of potential as a nice walking/biking route.

Adding bollards narrow enough to block motor vehicles but wide enough to permit strollers/bikes would be nice, and a great connexion to Edgerton Park. This coupled with a really nice pedestrian crossing @ Whitney to the park would certainly open up that area.

Closing the street would improve bike and pedestrian safety in the neighborhood, by reducing the number of intersections. As Streever and NP suggest, it would also make the park a nicer place to walk.

In particular, the current intersection of East Rock and Whitney Avenue is unsignalized, so the manner in which vehicles exit onto Whitney is not particularly safe. (that intersection is actually in Hamden -- someone needs to open a new clicket with that problem so that it is reported to Hamden, not New Haven).

Also, this is a road with no sidewalk but people walk there all the time anyways. Not the best situation to have.

If the road is shut down, perhaps it could be narrowed into a multi-use path, in order to save on repaving costs. Ideally, the multi-use path could link up with the proposed Fair Haven Greenway, which the City has proposed in order to connect Fair Haven to East Rock Park via a walking/biking route following the Mill River.

I spoke with Ranger Dan - Man of Action in East Rock Park and we agreed that placing a trash bin closer to the road would be a temporary bandage on the problem. Dan put a trash bin there today. Thanks Dan! I picked up some trash on my run there yesterday and hope that all the folks out there reading this will do the same.

For the longer-term, there will be some structural road changes in the near future in this area such as the rennovation of the East Rock Road Bridge. Let's start to consider traffic calming measures along East Rock Park Road to allow for safer pedestrian/bicycle access and be ready to present these when there are public hearings about renovating East Rock Road Bridge.

As much as it would be nice to shut down East Rock Park Road, diverted traffic results in increased speeding on Burns St. making closing East Rock Park Road not the best option.

Justin Elicker
www.friendsofeastrockpark.org