Sidewalks requested for busy West Haven street

WEST HAVEN — Misha Dowdye discovered she could not be by her daughter’s side in the morning.

Starting around August, Dowdye, who lives about one mile from West Haven High School, accompanied her daughter on a walk to the high school. In only a small lane on the shoulder of the road of Platt Ave., separated from the roadway by a thin white line on the asphalt, Dowdye said they could only walk with one in front of the other. Much of the road does not have sidewalks. She told the Board of Education at a Dec. 5 meeting that she believes there needs to be more safety for students.

“What will happen when it starts to snow?” she asked, when the shoulder becomes icy and snow begins to accumulate on the side of the plowed roads. “Sidewalks would make me feel a lot more comfortable.”

Dowdye said that she believes there are multiple solutions to the issue of students walking to school on a high-traffic street without sidewalks besides the installation of sidewalks, including adding bus stops for students living closer than two miles to the high school or placing more crossing guards in dangerous areas.

According to the West Haven Board of Education’s policies, students in high school are eligible for bus ridership when they live more than two miles from the school, which is located between Platt Ave. and Kelsey Ave. The distance for bus eligibility is lower for students in lower grades, with Kindergarten through fourth grade students living more than three-fourths of a mile from their elementary schools being eligible for bus ridership. “Sidewalks or lack thereof are not necessarily a reason for students to ride the bus. We look at the amount of traffic as well as whether or not students may have to cross busy intersections. We also look at if the student may have some type of physical ailment or disability that would keep them from walking to and from school. Obviously, distance certainly plays a role based on the age of the child,” said Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro in an emailed statement.

Cavallaro said school administrators, including himself, spend the first days of school personally checking out bus route requests. He said the walk along Platt Ave. to school is something generations of students have done, including himself.

“The area in question has always been for walkers at the High School. In fact, I grew up around the corner from there on Hilltop Lane, and we all walked to school crossing the streets [along Platt Ave.],” he said.

Another challenge for implementing sidewalks is that many West Haven properties were built without sidewalks, before they were required, and those properties are now privately-owned preventing city action. “The sidewalks that were replaced or put in were on city property. It is the responsibility of the property owner to comply with regulations regarding sidewalks. For example, most newer homes or developments were required to have them installed when they were built,” Cavallaro said.

Councilman Victor Borras, D-8, whose district includes the high school and Platt Ave., said he believes there is a need for traffic-calming measures like speed humps near the high school and greater infrastructure like sidewalks.

“Platt Ave. does have its speeding vehicles from time to time and that is a concern also. So having crossing guards and more sidewalks in place is a good thing to see happen on Platt Ave.,” he said.

Cavallaro said the school district cannot accommodate “door to door service” for parents and students and school is canceled “pretty quickly” on winter days where road conditions are hazardous.

Some parents believe there should be even more supervision on city streets surrounding the high school. Parent Karla Boutin said she worries about the potential that a person, not a car, might harm her daughter. “I take her to school in the morning and I check my Ring doorbell every afternoon just to make sure she made it home safely,” she said.

Cavallaro said the district works “pretty closely” with the Police Department to have crossing guards at “key intersections.”

Ken Carney, head of the city’s ARPA Committee, which is tasked with overseeing the project management and expenditure of $29 million in federal pandemic recovery funds, has worked with contractors to ensure the paving and repaving of sidewalks and ramps in the vicinity of schools. “To date, we have spent $413,743.88 from ARPA funds out of the $459,541.00 allotted by the City Council for sidewalks city-wide,” he said in an email this week. “The new sidewalks were installed specifically to promote students walking to school.”

Carney said that new sidewalks to emerge from this program extend as far as Woodlawn Street, which is about a half-mile from the high school on Platt Ave.