Apartments to bring traffic calming efforts

NEW HAVEN — By fall, Audubon Street will be bookmarked at either end with almost matching traffic calming components as the city gets ready for the addition of hundreds of apartments in the mini-city that Spinnaker Real Estate Partners is constructing.

Neighborhood residents attended a meeting Monday at City Hall where the particulars of the design were explained by City Engineer Giovanni Zinn.

At Audubon and Orange streets, the city will add a 30foot-by-30-foot raised table to slow traffic at an intersection that

“We are pretty innovative in what we do in traffic calming.” — City Engineer Giovanni Zinn

will see increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic as 269 apartments populate the block bound by Orange, Audubon, State and Grove streets, as well as wrap and hide a 716-car garage.

The project also will include 5,000 square feet of retail on the Orange Street side.

Already at the site is McQueeney Towers, a Housing Authority property, and the Educational Center for the Arts, while the Creative Arts Center is in the middle of the block.

Audubon also leads to the train station on State Street, which is much more prominent now that

trains are running to Hartford on a regular basis.

The traffic calming design at Whitney Avenue and Audubon Street, a block away, is wider than Orange Street as it has two traveling lanes and two parking lanes as well as a bumpout.

Both feature, at the corners, bollards connected to chains that direct the pedestrian traffic to the right crossings. The dimensions of the streets are not changed, they are only raised about six inches,

Zinn said, but it will be a gentle rise.

The Orange and Audubon street intersection will be closed for two days for paving, while there will be lane closures throughout the two- to three-week construction sometime between September and December.

The project will cost close to $120,000 with Spinnaker volunteering to cover half.

The surface will be asphalt with red thermal plastic crosswalks. Zinn said the material is melted into the asphalt and becomes part of it. “It is very survivable and doesn’t have the issue with bricks lifting out or a plow catching a brick,” Zinn said. “It enhances visibility.”

“It is attractive. We use it all over town” the engineer said. New Haven has many raised tables around town, including Clinton Avenue and Edwards Street. Zinn said the Orange Street raised table was designed by Chris Flanagan.

“We are pretty innovative in what we do in traffic calming,” Zinn said, particularly since 2010 and the complete streets legislation and manual.

Mary E. O’Leary / Hearst Connecticut Media The intersection of Audubon and Orange streets will get a raised table for traffic calming purposes.