No, you want to bike...fine. Leave the rest of us alone.

Improving cycling infrastructure benefits everyone, not just cyclists.

"Studies have shown that even moderate increases in physical activity can have a substantial impact on health. Bicycling to work has been shown to decrease mortality by as much as 40%... Automobile travel provides increased mobility and convenience for travelers, but also has high costs associated with taxes, insurance, gas, maintenance, road construction and repair, and contributes to air pollution. When infrastructure is built to allow consumers to choose between automobile and other forms of travel, it reduces a community's automobile dependency and allows for more efficient land usage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle-friendly#Benefits_of_bicycle-friendly_communities

So far as I can tell, a dedicated bike lane will only be possible west of Vista Terrace. Vista Terrace to Central Ave will have to be sharrows, particularly given the center median there…which could actually create problems for cars passing bicycles. Anyone know any alternate routes up to at least Forest Rd?

I’m going to recommend Willard St for now. That will actually connect better to the Yale Ave bike lanes and traffic is low enough that sharrows will be fine. Plus that one block of Forest we’d be having people take between Willard and Fountain has shoulders with edgelines that could basically function as bike lanes.

Agreed that lanes will only currently fit west of Vista Terrace - and even there, there are some obstacles to work through. Right now, east-bound traffic coming down the hill toward Vista Terrace takes two lanes, partly b/c of the Whalley construction, but I'm guessing this will be a point to work through with DOT. I haven't measured it, but it looks like throughout "upper" Fountain, on-street parking will have to be limited to one side. This shouldn't be a big issue, but neighbors will likely need to be won over.

East of Vista Terrace, sharrows would make a BIG difference right now, but I think a bigger vision re-thinking of "lower" Fountain Street needs to happen so that this section with two K-8 schools, a post office, Chapel Haven, tons of houses and apartments, a public library, multiple day cares, and multiple houses of worship functions as a complete street.

In terms of Willard, sharrows would be nice, but somewhat superfluous right now given the very low speeds and volumes of traffic on it. Our first priority is to have safe, viable routes into the Village - hence the desire for sharrows on Central and Fountain leading all the way down.

If you're bypassing the Village and want to avoid the downhill/uphill, it's safer and quicker to take Willard to McKinley or Barnett and cut over from there to Fountain. There's very little room on Forest Road. When it's empty cars are flying, but mostly it's filled with cars to the light between Willard and Fountain.

Edgewood Avenue

Has their been any progress on improvements to Fountain Street?

On the narrower section of Fountain from Whalley to Alden, I might recommend a buffered bike lane in the uphill direction and sharrows in the downhill direction (similar to Humphrey Street).

Regarding Edgewood Ave, please see http://seeclickfix.com/issues/220640-buffered-bike-lanes-needed-on-wide-section-of-edgewood.

Going forward, I think we should be pushing for New Haven to meet international best practices that make a city actually bikeable for people of all ages (that is, buffered bike lanes and cycle tracks on streets with moderate traffic volumes), not settling for the typical "striped bike lane" from 10 years ago.

This issue was recategorized from Uncategorized to Other.

We are trying to delineate issues that are current and need the city's attention to resolve. Any issues prior to 2013 are being closed. If your issue remains and needs to be addressed by the city, please either re-open or open as a new See Click Fix issue. Thanks.