I appreciate the different perspective you’re providing but i have to disagree that bike safety was only marginally approved as you say. The previous road had unprotected, door zone, paint only bike lanes that dropped out at a historically very dangerous intersection. Now, there is a 2-way bike facility that is off road, set back, and grade separated, with one crossing of chapel street split into two separate crossings with a median island and physical infrastructure that will force drivers to slow to 15-20 mph.

I’ve been biking through this to test it out frequently and I really don’t feel like there’s a noticeable difference in speed (maybe a few seconds) between taking the bike path around vs using the vehicle lane. I would encourage you to ride through it in all ways that you are able to, maybe experiencing it in person will provide some clarity compared to looking at a still photo.

Yes it’s a standard full height curb

Yeah the stop for bikes was not part of the original design, the traffic dept made us put them in. There’s some proposed legislation that would allow bikes to treat stops like yields though.

But for cyclists who are comfortable riding in mixed traffic, they are absolutely free to leave the cycletrack and bike through the vehicle lane if they want to be quicker, as they are legally allowed to. This crossing is an option for those cyclists who aren’t comfortable riding in traffic yet and want a crossing that moreso resembles a pedestrian crosswalk (because it’s also that). US design manuals for bike crossings at roundabouts are pretty lacking but in general, the crossings are always set back from the vehicle yield line by one car length so that a car waiting to enter the roundabout won’t block the crosswalk/crossbike.

What would you do differently?

Was that you out there on thursday? I was with the group doing our final inspection and a onewheeler was out doing some laps

Big tractor trailers will be able to get through going straight on chapel but really shouldnt be making those sharp turns as other more suitable routes exist like 34. And the boulevard road diet is a CTDOT thing, illegal drag racing was going on along with continuous pedestrian deaths

Definitely agree though that unfinished ends of cycletracks are not ideal but having a complete and contiguous network of cycletracks can work really nicely if the intersections and transitions to single lanes are properly designed, like the Dutch have figured out :)

Drivers will have to follow the same yielding laws that apply to any roundabout. If they are incapable of judging other drivers’ behaviors at intersections, they should not be driving.

Roundabouts are a massive safety improvement and i’ll take any kind of crash that occurs with this new layout opposed to the severe carnage that was happening with the old intersection

Yeah yale ave still has to get milled/paved for that cycletrack config but we had safety markings stripe a temporary cycletrack between here and edgewood so it’s tied in. The transition was actually pretty nice with the exclusive bike signal phase

soon

it's a state road only until ella grasso blvd, everything to the east of the blvd is city owned

For $4k/month you may be able to get a penthouse in 360 State. It's downtown so you will have traffic/ambulance noise but it may be quieter at the top. They do shorter term leases as well

Contact LCI to evaluate if there are housing code violations?

Enforcing any kind of motor vehicle infractions effectively would require an incredible number of uniformed officers, if enforcement is to remain in the hands of officers. It is simply impossible to place officers at every intersection, or even every major problem intersection, and then so, the entire police force would be on traffic duty and not attending to more pressing matters.

This is why, revenue completely aside, traffic enforcement needs to be automated to the fullest extent possible both internally (speed governors inside cars, technology to prevent distracted driving, etc) and externally (red light & speeding cameras), and then if any human interaction is needed, it's done by department of transportation or DMV reps, not armed officers.

It has been known in CT for a while that camera enforcement is "illegal" per state statute, however, at a recent meeting of the CT Vision Zero Council (which I am a member of), it was brought up by the state that technically, camera enforcement isn't explicity prohibited, nor is it explicit that motor vehicle enforcement has to be done by an in-person officer. There is also prima facie presumption of accuracy for other speed-monitoring devices police use such as radar guns, and that presumption can be extended to "any other speed monitoring device approved by the Commissioner of Emergency Services and Pubic Protection." But the state would likely still pursue some legislative changes if it moves forward to prevent any challenges.

hey it's me i designed the traffic peanut

anyways here's a previous article about it: https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/chapel_yale_ave

The worst part is, although they're doing some new studies now, an older study from a few years ago regarding 95 from New Haven to the RI line explicity referenced induced demand and how a third lane in each direction would attract more drivers. But then the consultant said that they still recommend adding that lane anyways because it could handle the increased traffic demand. Gotta love traffic engineers!

You may be able to walk in the State St entrance as far as the intersection that goes to the 360 Garage, but will probably get lots of funny looks. There's a loading dock there for the apartments, I walked through there to help a moving truck get in so it's physically possible. Past that intersection though is a guarded gate. The Elm St entrance has the guard gate right at the start so you'd only be able to look in from there. The tunnel mostly serves various parking garages / loading docks.

From a transportation perspective - both neighborhoods have access to bus lines to downtown, bike infrastructure to downtown (farmington canal vs edgewood ave cycle track under construction), are walkable, and are near route 15 interchanges. you might find more restaurant/shop options in westville than spring glen though. both great options!