Plan envisions safer, more walkable streets
Task force sees move toward pedestrians, bicyclists, bus riders
HARTFORD — Making the streets of Hartford safer to navigate and more walkable — considered a key facet in the development of vibrant cities — is at the heart of a new plan working its way through city channels.
The plan attempts to tilt the balance away from cars and toward pedestrians, bicyclists and bus riders by lowering speed limits, upgrading traffic signals and adding electronic signs to major bus stops.
Traffic signals would be upgraded as part of existing projects, so there is no cost estimate for that work. The rest of the Complete Streets Plan would cost about $2 million over the first three years, then $560,000 per year beyond that.
The 45-page draft plan seeks to address the shortcomings of roads designed primarily for cars. Athird of Hartford households don’t have access to a motor vehicle so they walk, bike, use wheelchairs or take public transportation to navigate streets that are at best uninviting and at worst dangerous, the plan explains.
Between 1995 and 2019, pedestrians and cyclists accounted for 22% of all crash fatalities in Hartford despite being involved in less than 7% of crashes in the city, according to the plan, which drew information from the University of Connecticut Crash Data Repository.
In Hartford, 2018 was a particularly “horrendous” year, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, Sandy Fry, said. For the first time in at least 25 years, more pedestrians died in crashes than motor vehicle occupants.
A number of the changes envisioned in the Complete Streets Plan — drafted by a task force of city departments, civic groups, design professionals, businesses and residents — aim to reduce serious crashes.
“Pedestrians are way over-represented in the severe crashes and that’s a pretty compelling reason to want to do something about it,”
Fry said. “Looking at these kinds of statistics, you recognize that by designing our roadways strictly for motor vehicles, we’ve left some people out of the equation and we need to bring them back.”
For one, the task force recommends changing the way walk signals work at most intersections. Rather than pedestrians pushing a button to request a walk signal, they would be able to cross whenever parallel vehicle traffic has a green light.
Afew signalized intersections would still require pedestrians to push a button, triggering a period when all vehicle traffic has a red light, like at Main Street and Pearl/ Central Row in downtown.
However, it’s not recommended for most areas because the practice has been shown to result in more dangerous behavior on the part of both pedestrians and drivers, leading to more serious crashes, the plan states.
The draft is under review by the city council’s planning, economic development and housing committee, which held its first discussion on the plan last week. The committee meets next on March 25.
Complete Streets meet the needs of other modes of transport and also serve as a shared, public space for living.”City of Hartford Complete Streets Plan draft
The Complete Streets Plan would align with the city’s Complete Streets Ordinance, which was passed in 2016, the Bicycle Plan adopted in 2019 and the Plan of Conservation and Development adopted in 2020.
An separate but related proposal has already been made to transform the overly-wide, low-foot-traffic Main Street in the downtown into a “complete street.” A preliminary design concept completed last year calls for a roundabout, two-way lane for bicycles and strategically placed medians and crosswalks to make the artery safer, more efficient and more inviting for pedestrians and transit users.
The city still must get funding to design and build that project.
“A key aspect of Complete Streets is the recognition that good streets play a far larger role than providing unconstrained access for motor vehicles,” the new draft plan states. “Complete Streets meet the
needs of other modes of transport and also serve as a shared, public space for living.”
The plan calls for adding electronic signs with real-time information on bus arrivals at major transfer locations. It also recommends adding more bicycle racks in commercial corridors, and designing the bike path system and bike trails identified as important projects in other city plans.
The city would also add some new crosswalks, including lighted and raised treatments and curb bump-outs to make pedestrians more visible to motorists. Priority would go to locations where pedestrian crashes have occurred, then school zones, signalized intersections, and stop-sign intersections.
The task force recommends upgrading existing crosswalks with audible pedestrian signals for people who are blind or low vision.
The plan recommends setting a default speed limit of 25 mphand requiring a study to justify any higher speeds. That default speed is already “prematurely posted, and ignored widely” on some existing signs, the plan notes.
The city would need to work with the Officeof the State Traffic Administration to make the new default speed official, and the task force recommends pairing the change with an educational campaign, speed monitoring and enforcement. It could also start by lowering speeds on just one commercial and one residential corridor, such as Farmington and Fairfield avenues, where the speed limit is 30 mph.
The city has previously tried to lower speeds in the downtown by submitting a request to the state. The Complete Streets Plan calls for Hartford to resubmit that request, first made in 2018. The city is planning community outreach over the next month to garner more feedback about the draft, which was completed in October and introduced to the city council last month.
The city may need to hire a design consultant and additional, permanent staff, including a city traffic engineer, to bring the Complete Streets Plan to life, the task force notes.