‘We get scared’: Call for change at New Haven intersection with ‘history of serious crashes’
NEW HAVEN — Three people have lost their lives at South Frontage Road and York Street in the past 12 years.
South Frontage has multiple lanes and many drivers are headed toward the entrance to the interstate highways. Speeding and running red lights have been cited numerous times.
But, beyond speed, the design of the roadways themselves make them perilous for cyclists and pedestrians, those familiar with the intersection said.
The most recent fatality was on Oct. 6, when Yale Law School student Keonho Lim rode his bike through the intersection and hit a turning truck.
“You are taught to ride as far to the right as possible,” said Rob Rocke, a member of Elm City Cycling and the Safe Streets Coalition of New Haven. He said the American League of Bicyclists lists the type of collision in which Lim was killed, known as a right hook, as one of the most common.
The truck, a large Mitsubishi box truck owned by Yale New Haven Hospital, was turning right from the middle lane, which is marked for both a turn and a straight crossing. The right lane is a right-turn lane.
Rocke said he biked through the intersection a few weeks ago, before Lim’s accident. Heading north on York Street, as Lim did, Rocke said, “I found myself a little bit confused as I rode up to that intersection. It felt weird to go over a lane. As a cyclist you’re taught to ride as far over to the right as practicable.”
Traffic structure
While it wasn’t a factor in the most recent accident, speeds on South Frontage Road often have been raised as a danger to the many people from the hospital and Yale School of Medicine who cross that intersection daily. The speed limit is 25 mph.
Carmen Pajarillo, a second-year medical student who is a member of the Yale Traffic Safety Committee, said roadway design encourages or discourages safe travel and that’s what should be given attention.
“There should really be a focus on the way that we structure traffic in New Haven,” she said. “Good traffic design would minimize mistakes or incidents. … I think it’s unfair to assume that everyone on the road, pedestrian or motor vehicle user, will be perfect users.”
Pajarillo cited a 2019 study in the Journal of Transport & Health, which found that, while bicycling is considered more dangerous than driving, the number of fatalities drops when bike lanes and other infrastructure improvements are put into place, which encourage more cycling.
Doug Hausladen, director of the city Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking, said a bike lane and a signal giving cyclists a green light before motor vehicles would increase the safety of intersections like York and South Frontage.
“I just hope that people can get together with really thoughtful conversations and open minds,” he said. “Clearly this is a dangerous intersection with a lot of traffic going quickly.”
He said his department works with a police reconstruction team after every crash involving serious injury, looking at short-term and long-term fixes.
“There are a lot of places in New Haven where we have double turn lanes,” he said, and the city is conducting an analysis of them. Trucks have a blind spot on their right side, which creates the potential for them to turn in front of a cyclist.
“What New York did in 2015 was they created a program to install what’s called side guards on large trucks,” Hausladen said. The guards, which prevent someone from falling beneath the vehicle, could be installed on large fleets, he said.
A cyclist “should not have to pay the price of their life with this crash,” Hausladen said. Lim was the 12th pedestrian or cyclist killed in the city this year.
Ultimately, Hausladen said, city officials would like to reduce the number of one-way streets and “to create a two-way grid that can handle traffic more efficiently” and encourage drivers to slow down. “If we go two-way on York Street,” as well as Park Street, “it’s an opportunity to do a lot more with the right of way,” he said.
Funding needs
Much of the problem is “intransigence in the funding for transportation,” Hausladen said. “We seem to find money for the interstate highways, but not for the local network.”
Neil Olinski, a member of the Safe Streets Coalition and a transportation planner, said if the street grid were changed from one-way to two-way, “generally speaking, traffic patterns and traffic flow would reroute through the city.” But money is an obstacle, he said.
“If it was easy to solve, it probably would have already been solved,” he said. “Changing the layout of a roadway could be quite costly,” including traffic signals and curbing.
“I think the city’s Complete Streets policy is over 10 years old at this point,” Olinski said. “But changing streets and roads to be Complete Streets is very costly. … You compound that with the fact that there are state roads … that are operated by the DOT that run through New Haven.”
In the meantime, he suggested removing one motor vehicle lane from York Street, making it a dedicated bike lane, and allowing cyclists to cross South Frontage Road before motor vehicles get a green light.
Mayor Justin Elicker said Complete Streets was “one of the first things I voted on” when he joined the Board of Alders in 2010, though he wasn’t involved in developing the policy.
A cyclist himself, Elicker said he plans “in the foreseeable future engaging with community members who are interested in this intersection” to discuss ways to improve safety.
“I think it’s important to point out that this intersection has a history of serious crashes,” he said. “At the same time there are many other problem intersections and roads throughout the city we need to work on as well.
“The ultimate vision is that every fatality is avoidable, and we need to design streets in a way that dramatically reduces the likelihood of crashes, in particular crashes that impact vulnerable users and there’s a lot of different ways that we get there,” he said.
Elicker listed infrastructure improvements, police enforcement of speeding and red-light running, education and “automated enforcement” — cameras that photograph vehicles running through red lights.
No easy answers
When it comes to red-light cameras, Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said, “at one point it seemed to have quite a bit of momentum,” but the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus objected to them, with members saying they would be used more to raise revenue than to calm traffic.
“They thought that, obviously, since the major cities have substantial minority populations, that they would be the ones hit by this,” Looney said. The American Civil Liberties Union also objected on civil rights grounds, he said.
Rocke advocated for red-light cameras, saying, “The privacy concerns become sillier and sillier for anybody who has a smartphone and a Facebook account.”
Money is “a real concern, but when people are dying there it seems there’s got to be a way to move quicker,” Rocke said. Also, “there’s this perception of no enforcement” of speed limits by police.
Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said at the most recent Compstat intelligence gathering meeting that plans to report on traffic enforcement had been delayed by the pandemic but that he wanted police to do so in the future.
“It is something that’s important, something that we do want to start tracking,” he said. “I’m going to be asking the district managers to report out on their traffic enforcement efforts, particularly when they see spikes in their respective districts. … We are focusing on traffic the best that we can, and traffic control measures, to minimize these incidents from happening.”
Dr. Kirsten Bechtel, a specialist in pediatric emergency medicine who is chairwoman of the Yale Traffic Safety Committee, said the panel will meet soon to discuss the Oct. 6 accident.
“We’ve been concerned about speed and red-light running in that area, but this is a new issue,” she said.
“It’s unfathomable to think that somebody could be killed in that intersection in that way,” Bechtel said. “I bike through that intersection every day when I leave the hospital.”
Spencer Brinker of New Haven was waiting on his bike at a red light in the middle lane of York Street recently. He said as a driver and cyclist he thinks that certain entities, such as universities and hospitals, could offer some safety awareness of riding bikes.”
Brinker said he would add a bicycle lane to York Street, but on the left side, to avoid the chance of hitting a right-turning vehicle.
Karen Peart, spokeswoman for Yale, said the Traffic Safety Committee was formed in 2011 and offered a bicycle-safety program. The committee also has advocated for red-light cameras and speed enforcement, among other measures. Radar was used to measure speeds on South Frontage, which were regularly above the limit, especially after dark, she said.
Concrete bollards also have been installed on three corners of the intersection, after the death of Melissa Tancredi in 2017. A hospital employee, Tancredi was standing on the northeast corner when a driver failed to turn left onto York Street and continued straight onto the sidewalk. Another pedestrian, Mila Rainoff, was struck and killed at the intersection in 2008.
Berna Opuszynski, a registered nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital, suggested a speed bump at York and South Frontage.
“We’ve had so many people unfortunately die at this intersection,” she said.
As a pedestrian, “we get scared” crossing South Frontage Road, she said.
“We want to be cautious,” she said. “Don’t want to talk to anyone, don’t want to be distracted.”
Alder Abigail Roth, D-7, whose ward includes the north side of South Frontage Road, said the city, hospital and Yale University could work together to come up with solutions, since “this particular intersection is where a significant number of the users are connected to Yale and Yale New Haven Hospital.”
She said other intersections are problems as well. “Columbus Avenue and Ella Grasso Boulevard is a horrible intersection,” she said. “Many of these involve state roads too, so that adds another player.”
Vincent Petrini, spokesman for Yale New Haven Hospital, said in an email, “We are heartbroken by the events of last week and our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have been impacted by this tragic accident.
“We will continue to work in partnership with the city to advance efforts for enhanced safety, including advocacy for red light camera legislation in the General Assembly.”
edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382. Ben Lambert contributed to this story.
Comments