Citywide Petition for Safe, Livable Streets

Original post, 5/24/08: Numerous studies have shown that safe, livable, walkable streets that encourage a sense of community are absolutely essential for cities that wish to promote public health, economic development, alternative forms of transport, the environment and social equity.

A citywide "petition for safe streets" -- which, among many other specific measures, calls for strict 15-20MPH speed limits in areas with dense concentrations of pedestrians like some of those surrounding Route 34 -- is being sponsored by a number of community groups, organizations and elected officials in New Haven. The petition may be viewed here. The document will be used to lobby for major change at the local and state level. Please feel free to circulate.

Update 5/27/08: A new umbrella website for the safe streets coalition has now been launched.

Update 5/29/08: An informational post from the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team listserv:

The coalition for safe streets has many goals, which might be summarized as three distinct components:

1) Immediately reducing the number of deaths and injuries on our streets by 50% by 2009 and 90% by 2015. Virtually all of these are preventable. The number of New Haven residents currently being injured on our streets is ethically unacceptable, particularly when one considers that fewer than 30% of injuries are even ever reported to the hospital, and fewer than 1% to the news media -- even though almost all of us have had friends or relatives killed or permanently disabled in traffic incidents. By supporting the petition, New Haven is signaling that it absolutely and unequivocally can not and does not accept the current situation on our streets.

2) Raising education and awareness about the issue of traffic safety among the entire community, so that citizens can take preventative measures to ensure their own safety, mobilize around the issue and work for long-term changes that will benefit their neighborhoods, their health and their overall well-being. That includes protecting their property values -- would you want to move to a place where oil trucks were speeding down the road in front of your kid's school at 50MPH? It is happening here already -- see the New Haven Register article posted at http://www.newhavensafestreets.org. Long-term changes will require engineering, education, enforcement, planning/ public evaluation and legislative change. Those of you who follow progress in Hartford realize that our legislators are already listening and making some positive changes. As Doug points out, there are many pieces of the puzzle, which no single petition or master plan could ever fully address. As such, one of the specific requests of the petition is a quarterly public report on enforcement actions and traffic incidents by neighborhood, and an annual public evaluation of the city's progress on traffic safety, so that each community can better understand what is happening around them, and respond in ways that solve the problem. We are not minimizing the great work that communities and the police have done already, but it is clear from talking with such groups across the city that much more is needed.

3) Building political capital for change at the local, regional and state levels. Even though the economic development, transport efficiency, public health, social and environmental benefits of livable, safe streets have been widely and very precisely understood for decades, many cities are only just beginning to take vigorous action to implement them. If New Haven and other dense urban centers in Connecticut do not catch up with what these other cities, states and countries are currently doing, we will be forever fighting an uphill battle to compete with them (many would say that in some ways, we are already competing with our neighboring towns - on Sunday, I traveled through over 20 towns in Connecticut, all of which had pedestrian crosswalk markers except New Haven). Those concerned with the long-term economic health of our beautiful city, or even just the short-term health of their own bank accounts, literally can not afford to continue to accept the status quo on this issue.

Update 6/19/08: NHI reports (photo above) on canvassers taking to the New Haven Green and Medical Center area, educating residents about traffic safety concerns and collecting hundreds of signatures. A majority of the New Haven Board of Aldermen and neighborhood police district community management teams (CMTs), including the Downtown-Wooster Square CMT, have now signed on and support the petition. Check the coalition website for further updates.

Update 6/20/08: Another New Haven Register article on the citywide momentum for traffic calming and traffic safety:

"There is an incredible momentum on this issue. I hope everyone gets on the bandwagon and does something positive,” said Mary Faulkner, chairwoman of the Westville management group. She said traffic calming measures not only increase pedestrian safety, they enhance economic development and actually move traffic more efficiently. “We have to have more say in how our streets are designed,” Faulkner said.

Update 7/30/08: East Rock becomes the 10th of 12th New Haven Community Management Teams to vote in support of the petition. The city's two remaining neighborhoods, Dwight and Dixwell (DECMT), are expected to discuss and/or vote on the petition when they reconvene after summer break (the item has already been presented to the DECMT). In related events, one of the petition supporters, the Coalition for a Livable Whalley, along with Senator Toni Harp and Representative Pat Dillon, has recently brought up concerns about the DOT's plan to widen Whalley Avenue. DNH hears that the road is currently being designed with a "design speed" of about 40mph -- appropriate for a suburban highway, perhaps, but definitely not for a road that cuts through a vibrant and densely-populated urban neighborhood.