A public hearing is scheduled for September 12 in Trumbull to discuss adding 4.1 miles to the Pequonnock River Trail with a link from Taits Mill Road in Trumbull Center to Beardsley Park in Bridgeport, reports the Connecticut Post.
The expansion plan is to create synergies between neighborhoods and the shopping area. The trail currently links Trumbull to Monroe and Newtown and is approximately 20 miles. The public hearing will take place at Frenchtown Elementary School in Trumbull at 7 p.m. Click here for more information.
Photo courtesy of Allan Appel, New Haven Independent.
If you had the choice between tying your bike up against a squash, broccoli or carrots, which one would you pick? Now you actually will have a choice if you are cycling in downtown New Haven. A public art piece, that also serves as a bike rack was installed in front of Claire's Corner Copia a vegetarian restaurant on Chapel Street in New Haven. Yale rising senior, Ben Green, a intern at the City of New Haven's office of traffic for Jim Travers spearheaded the program less than 10 months ago. According to an article in the New Haven Independent, Travers' department has plans to install three or four more artistic bike racks around the city. Claire’s owner Claire Criscuolo donated $600 for the rack. Yale University paid for the steel tubing; a $1,200 mayor’s community arts grant went toward a pipe bender. The artistic and design hours came from the Design for American Workshop at Yale and from the Creative Arts Workshop (CAW). Noted sculptor and CAW teacher Ann Lehman and her crew did the design and fabrication. The Whitney Avenue and Audubon Street intersection—situated in the heart of New Haven’s busy east side dining and shopping district and bordering Yale University and the Audubon Arts District—is getting a complete makeover.
The City of New Haven, utilizing the professional design services of CDM Smith, has redesigned the entire intersection using "Complete Streets" principles. “This work is part of a larger effort by the City to make downtown easily navigable, more attractive, appealing and safe for everyone—pedestrians, motorists and bicyclists,” said Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. “This redesign also creates a sense of place at the intersection.” Complete Streets are designed to enable safe access for everyone—pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and drivers–and have been shown to promote health, reduce traffic congestion, and improve economic vitality. New Haven’s Complete Streets design manual was voted as the top manual—nationwide—by the National Safe Streets Coalition. “Designing streets to just move cars doesn't work. This intersection will soon exemplify the direction that New Haven is taking with its street design and transportation safety policies by emphasizing pedestrian movement and support area businesses,” said Jim Travers, Director, Transportation, Traffic and Parking. Kelly Murphy, the City’s Economic Development Administrator, said that feedback from existing businesses has been extremely positive. “These improvements will increase foot traffic for existing businesses and make the area more enticing for new businesses.” The project employs "Complete Streets" strategies and innovative traffic calming interventions to make the streets as conducive to pedestrian and bicycle travel as they are for motor vehicles and to encourage all users to share the street. This shared space is achieved using: • A speed table or elevated intersection with special textured and colored surfacing, including high-visibility crosswalks; • Curb extensions or bump-outs that reduce street widths at crosswalks and greatly enhance sight lines between pedestrians and motor vehicles; • Increased sidewalk widths to provide space for pedestrian amenities such as seating and sidewalk cafes; • Vertical edge treatments that will provide a buffer between sidewalks and travel lanes and also provide visual cues for motorists to anticipate increased pedestrian activity; • New granite bollards, street trees and ornamental LED street lighting which are positioned to intensify lighting at crosswalks; and • Dual Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFB) activated by pedestrians that will alert drivers to crossing pedestrians using eye-level, LED strobe lights with an irregular flash pattern. Construction is expected to begin in October and be completed in December. With the opening of the San Francisco Bay Area bikeshare program last week (August 28), the fleet of shared bikes in the U.S. more than doubled since the start of 2013 and is now above 18,000. According to an article on grist, with all the programs that are in the works, the U.S. fleet of shared bikes will double again by the end of 2014, and will reach nearly 37,000 shared bicycles. The new San Francisco Bay Area bikeshare is starting off with 700 bicycles split between San Francisco and other cities on a 50-mile rail line south to San Jose. Planners note the share program could eventually grow to 10,000 bicycles. According to the article, other share programs in the works for the near future include: Miami, FL; St. Petersburg, FL; Tampa, FL; Phoenix; Los Angeles; San Diego; Portland, OR; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia and Seattle. |
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