Catherine Wright and Jon Spodick both live in Westville and came to Sabin’s meeting to talk about street safety: after the meeting, Wright said she felt like the plans Sabin had outlined were “doable.” Anni Greenidge and Sabin walk down Fountain Street in Westville. Parking cash-out pro grams to disincentivize driving. A Stop Speeding Action Plan that starts with studying drivers’ behaviors — and could end with redesigned streets. Free buses that stop more frequently. Those are three transportation-focused proposals that state rep candidate Eli Sabin put forward Monday afternoon during a policy walk down a state-owned Westville thoroughfare. Sabin, a former downtown alder and the legislative coordinator at Connecticut Voices for Children, is looking to unseat incumbent State Rep. Pat Dillon in the Aug. 11 Democratic Primary for the 92nd General Assembly District seat. That district covers parts of Amity, Westville, Edgewood, Dwight and the Hill. Sabin is one of three Democrats running in the primary, alongside Dillon and former Hamden Legislative Council member Justin Farmer. On Monday, Sabin and about a dozen people — almost all Westville residents, mostly supporters of his — met at Fountain Street and Lakeview Terrace to discuss transportation and safety, especially on state roads, which the city does not control. Monday’s gathering comes after Sabin brought together neighbors for a housing-and-affordability-focused policy talk at Whalley Pizza in June. “I’ve been knocking on thousands of doors throughout this campaign, and over and over again, one of the biggest things I hear from folks is about traffic calming and people feeling unsafe on the streets, especially parents,” Sabin said. It can be “unpleasant” to walk on neighborhood streets, Sabin said, which “hurts our local businesses and the feel of our community, and it has a huge impact on all of us.” Hillary Grant, who has lived in Westville since 1999, told Sabin before the walk that she feels that traffic in her neighborhood has become “really dangerous.” Neighbor Jon Spodick, reported he had seen two vehicles collide at Edgewood Avenue and Alston Avenue on Monday morning. Sabin said there have been about 90 pedestrian-involved car accidents on Whalley Avenue in the past decade — not all blame should fall on drivers themselves, he suggested. After introducing himself and hearing from neighbors, Sabin explained why complaints about their roads seemed to go nowhere: several of the roads in Westville — including Fountain Street, Forest Road, and Whalley Avenue, among others — are owned by the state, meaning municipalities are not permitted to install traffic-safety measures, signs, or markings there without approval from the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CT DOT). Getting the go-ahead from the state is “a process that can be very slow and cumbersome and expensive and often leads to years and years of delay,” Sabin said. “I think that’s the delay that we’re all living with, because how dangerous our streets, these roads, are has been this way for years, decades even.” Sabin said as state representative, he would push for a Stop Speeding Action Plan, which would start with a study of drivers’ speeding violations and potentially culminate in a CT DOT engineering plan for street redesign. “If implementation of that plan doesn’t start within a year, the municipality will be given the power to implement the changes itself,” Sabin wrote in the pamphlet he passed around detailing his policy proposals. “If the state is not going to act, then we need to allow our municipalities to act instead.” Grant said she did not know about the distinction between city and state roads, and liked Sabin’s “approach” to informing neighbors about transportation issues. “He is giving us a framework,” she said, by encouraging neighbors to contact legislators and come up with their own ideas for improvements. While he focused on street safety, Sabin also outlined the city’s and the state’s plans for a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) program. Among Sabin’s transportation priorities is to “push DOT to focus the BRT plan on frequency and ridership,” he said. He has advocated for making New Haven’s bus system free. Among his other busing policy proposals are to connect the BRT system to Westville Village and Amity Road and to develop new affordable and mixed-income housing along BRT routes. Another policy Sabin brought up on Monday was a parking cash-out program for employers that lease parking spots to employees. That program would mean that employers who pay $200 per month for an employee’s parking spot should give the same amount to employees who walk, bike, bus or carpool to work. “Transportation is generally the second biggest cost in people’s monthly budgets after housing,” Sabin said. “A priority for making our state more comfortable is making it easier for people to get around.” As the walk progressed, Sabin paused occasionally for neighbors to ask questions or talk about what they were reflecting on while walking. Neighbors brought up sidewalks, bus lanes, the possibility of building new roundabouts, and litter on the streets — issues that some feel the neighborhood’s representatives have not been able to resolve.  “This is the first time a politician has cared,” said Julie Robbins, who lives on Fountain Street. She said she felt her concerns about safety on her street were heard by Sabin. “He has the capacity to connect to the community in a way that is pretty inspiring,” Robbins said. Kirke Elsass, who has lived in Westville for two years, was one of a few neighbors who compared Sabin and Democratic gubernatorial challenger and Hamden State Rep. Josh Elliott, who is looking to unseat two-term incumbent Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’. “For me, Eli has the right combination of new ideas and urgency.” He added that Sabin “has enough experience with how legislative mechanisms work,” to be able to implement “specific policy ideas” on day one, like a study on speeding. Catherine Wright and Grant, who live on the same street but had never met before Monday, chatted for much of the walk and got to know eachother. Sabin “brings neighbors together,” Wright said. Grant met Sabin while he was canvassing this year, and has since begun doorknocking for him. “I learned a lot more today,” she said. “He’s broken it down.” Julie Fraser and Sabin discussed turning and merging on the roads near her Fountain Street apartments: It’s always a “dicey situation,” she said. Rebekah Fraser raised a question about roundabouts as the group paused across from the Mauro-Sheridan School: “Asking drivers to change their behavior is not realistic,” she told Sabin. The post Sabin Pitches “Parking Cash-Out,” Traffic Calming On Transpo Policy Walk appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less