Acknowledged By the Transportation, Traffic and Parking Department.

How come the sharrows installed throughout Downtown New Haven were not installed going to the train station, one of the city's busiest bike routes?

The Dept. did not have authorization to apply sharrows on the short stretch from State St @ Water St, to Union Station, as this is a state controlled strech of road.

First:

Was authorization requested? Initially, the city had indicated that sharrows might be possible through a pilot implementation.

Posting all of the information about precisely what was requested, dates of all requests, and who denied requests for authorization and why, would help the community resolve the issue going forward.

It sounds like the community needs to push the state to adopt Federal road standards, which were recently changed to encourage use of sharrows. Has the city made requests for the state to adopt these standards more quickly?

Second:

Were measures other than sharrows evaluated? If so, details are needed again for the community to be able to respond effectively and advocate for changes. Sharrows are a good first step (recommended by the SCRCOG-funded Downtown gap analysis consultants in 2009), but ultimately, they are insufficient to allow users of all ages and abilities to get to Union Station by bicycle.

Is the State DOT so hard-set against on-street cycling? Or is it just difficult to obtain permission? I only wonder because the DOT was also against bicycle lanes on Whitney Avenue (the other busiest bicycle thoroughfare).

Elm City Cycling is developing conceptual designs for a separated bike path (cycle track) connecting downtown to Union Station as part of our long-range bike plan. Here is an early conceptual rendering that I have just put together.

That's excellent, Brian.

24,000 points does this person just drive around looking for things to report? Use the sidewalk.

Hey Jim Registered User- It is not legal to bike on the sidewalk. What do you have against safe bike routes in New Haven? And the use of See-Click-Fix? Nearly 12,000 people care about this issue.