Description
I walk up and down Mansfield St. at least twice a day, crossing Division Street and Munson/Hillside in the marked crosswalks. Even when I have begun crossing and am well into the middle of the street, cars blast through the crosswalks at 30 to 40 mph within 1-2 feet of me. Never once has a car stopped for me to cross at either intersection. Even when I was on crutches, no one cared. It is illegal for cars not to stop for pedestrians. If the police observed these crosswalks for an afternoon in unmarked cars, they could issue hundreds of tickets -- and perhaps the behavior of New Haven's drivers would finally change.
34 Comments
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Закрыта Anonymous (Guest)
Reopened Gina (Guest)
Anonymous (Guest)
Anonymous (Guest)
Anonymous (Guest)
VK (Guest)
juli (Registered User)
to the commenter above who said:"show a little hustle when crossing the street"
how about you show a little respect for your neighbors, whether or not they are attending college, and observe state law which is to yield to pedestrians.
the most it would cost you to wait for someone to cross, even the slowest imaginable person, might be 3 or 4 minutes? what in your life is so important that you can't possibly lose 3 minutes to help keep someone safe crossing a street? that is shorter than most commercial breaks. seriously.
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Rolando G (Guest)
fing (Guest)
I want to make sure that you all know that just because a person is IN a crosswalk does NOT mean that the person has the right away.
Yes, in this case the person had the right away. But some people act like "I'm in a crosswalk, I have the right of way."
The law clearly states that if the crosswalk has signals (walk/don't walk) the pedestrian MUST obey those signals.
fing (Guest)
I want to make sure that you all know that just because a person is IN a crosswalk does NOT mean that the person has the right away.
Yes, in this case the person had the right away. But some people act like "I'm in a crosswalk, I have the right of way."
The law clearly states that if the crosswalk has signals (walk/don't walk) the pedestrian MUST obey those signals.
Gina (Guest)
Obviously I agree that when there are walk/don't walk signs at an intersection, pedestrians should follow those signs. Pedestrians do not have the right of way while jaywalking.
However, this discussion is about crosswalks at busy intersections where there are no streetlights. Pedestrians have the right of way when they are in those crosswalks. Cars failing to yeild to them can be fined $90. (see http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/pub/Chap249.htm#Sec14-300.htm)
I would simply like to see CT state law enforced in New Haven. The stand-up crosswalk markers help make drivers more aware of crosswalks, but for many drivers the issue is not crosswalk visibility. Rather, the problem is that drivers simply do not want to stop for pedestrians. The crosswalk at Mansfield/Division has a crosswalk stand-up marker and other signs, and though they obviously see that I am in a crosswalk, cars still refuse to stop for me. I believe that improved enforcement is the only way to encourage New Haven's drivers to change their behavior.
Anonymous (Guest)
juli (Registered User)
billie,
thats amazing! you can tell, upon approaching someone in a crosswalk (while going not one mile over the speed limit, right?) whether A) they are attending college and B) rich?
neither attending college nor rich (but still demand to be stopped for when i legally have the right of way),
juli
juli (Registered User)
it's not called being kind, it's called following state law.
i can't believe the ignorance displayed here.
Works for a Living (Guest)
juli (Registered User)
an entitled, aggressive, selfish car-centric society is not a mere inconvenience, it detracts from ones quality of life. i don't speed through your neighborhood almost running you over.
i am neither rich, nor a yale student, nor a clueless jaywalking pedestrian, and i still nearly get run down in this city almost daily. i feel terribly for the elderly or children who have to wait at intersections passively or try to dart out of the way while streams of elitist drivers stream by on their cell phones without even noticing.
Anonymous (Guest)
I am also not rich, and not a Yale student. I confirm that people driving through crosswalks come very close to running me down. People don't seem to know that crosswalks are pedestrian territory, just like sidewalks that cross over driveways. Cars can go through these spaces only when pedestrians are not using them. That's a basic fact that you don't need to go to Yale to learn. If you don't know it, ConnDOT should not have given you a license. Drivers have a basic moral and legal obligation to yield to pedestrians making use of pedestrian space.
This isn't about dawdling Yalies. They are not the only pedestrians in New Haven.
ex-mansfield resident (Guest)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
I agree, speeding here is a MAJOR issue, even though the installation of a yield to pedestrian sign (which is only there a few months out of the year) has helped somewhat.
Since enforcement is next to useless and the police district manager has said it is difficult to maintain as a priority, given limited cop resources, the best solution would be to narrow the travel lanes significantly so that cars have to slow.
This can be done with temporary curb extensions for very little cost, until funding becomes available to install permanent infrastructure, like the ones currently being put in in East Shore, East Rock and Westville (at the current rate of construction, Newhallville will eventually get such infrastructure, but it will take dozens of years to roll them out everywhere they are needed).
Another short-term solution would be to drop a huge block of concrete in the middle of the intersection, with reflectors on it, like what Berkeley, CA and many other cities do.
I'm not sure why the city isn't working to improve quality of life by rolling out temporary infrastructure like this.
Finally, there's probably no need for so many travel lanes here. Get rid of one and turn the center area into a pedestrian median with large bollards.
Закрыта Abc (Registered User)
Reopened juli (Registered User)
Fellow Worker (Guest)
Works for a Living, I'm with ya...
But if someone's actually IN the crosswalk, you gotta stop.
Holler out the window at em or beep your horn if they're dragging @#$%, checking their iphone while crossing.
There's ways to let rich snots know that they're unloved that don't involve threatening their safety.
R Blahso (Guest)
Residential (Guest)
R. Blahso,
Lay on that horn, baby...
Concerned (Guest)
BillyR (Registered User)
Res (Registered User)
A pedestrian tunnel would just be a mugging trap after dark.
Right now you can't ticket any of these people, because the walk/don't times are so out of wack across the city....same with red lights.
New Haven should get it's act together and completely re-do all the stop light and pedestrian crossing times, and then aggressively enforce all of them...ticketing drivers and jaywalkers alike.
BillyR (Registered User)
Jaime Myers-Mcphail (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
City of New Haven (Verified Official)
Закрыта Manager of Operations, Process Improvement - Transportation, Traffic, & Parking (Verified Official)