Where is this place?

It’s where upper Chapel St crosses Yale Ave in Westville (just past Edgewood Park), New Haven CT USA on the 3rd Rock from the Sun

Right next to the Yale Bowl

looks pretty good tbh

Is it open now?

How long until the first accident because someones going to continue on Yale and the person on Chapel thinks they’re turning and pulls out right into or in front of them.

You can't fix stupid, unfortunately.

Though this new design will be a significant improvement, and make it easier for everyone to use.

Good thing it's winter. That peanut will get nicely salted.

I'm still not super sold on the cycletracks, as opposed to normal bike lanes. They create dangerous counter-traffic wherever they end/begin.

But I'll take all the separated bike inrastructure we can get. This addition will work well connected to the new Edgewood Bike lanes.

[deleted]

I would agree that they should have used a much stronger material for the bollards. The plastic is just way too easy to break off, and that kind of defeats the purpose of protecting the bike lane.

soon

Yeah yale ave still has to get milled/paved for that cycletrack config but we had safety markings stripe a temporary cycletrack between here and edgewood so it’s tied in. The transition was actually pretty nice with the exclusive bike signal phase

Drivers will have to follow the same yielding laws that apply to any roundabout. If they are incapable of judging other drivers’ behaviors at intersections, they should not be driving.

Roundabouts are a massive safety improvement and i’ll take any kind of crash that occurs with this new layout opposed to the severe carnage that was happening with the old intersection

Definitely agree though that unfinished ends of cycletracks are not ideal but having a complete and contiguous network of cycletracks can work really nicely if the intersections and transitions to single lanes are properly designed, like the Dutch have figured out :)

Road my one wheel around it the other day! It’s really well made. I’ve never seen a peanut shaped roundabout before. I wonder if it would be tricky for trucks with trailers?

Either way, Elicker is killing it with infrastructure! Though, I’m wondering what the reasoning is behind changing Grasso from a 2 to a 1 lane?

As someone who uses that intersection a lot, this is a great improvement. Either people would fly down that road, or people would drive overly timidly through it. Roundabouts are great.

Was that you out there on thursday? I was with the group doing our final inspection and a onewheeler was out doing some laps

Big tractor trailers will be able to get through going straight on chapel but really shouldnt be making those sharp turns as other more suitable routes exist like 34. And the boulevard road diet is a CTDOT thing, illegal drag racing was going on along with continuous pedestrian deaths

Looks like this uses the same design for the cycle track to cross the road as the roundabout on Crescent. I don't understand this design, it seems dangerous and really inconvenient for bikes.

What solar system and galaxy?

What would you do differently?

Of course I'm not an urban planner or traffic engineer, but I am a frequent road user (as I believe you are :). There's a yield for cars and a stop for bikes is one thing that makes this intersection much slower for bikes than cars. Honestly it seems like it'd be safer and faster to have unidirectional protected lanes on either side of the road that maybe merged with vehicular traffic before the intersection. This also is a pretty unfamiliar pattern for drivers, who will not be watching for bikes at the crossing here (at least until this design becomes widespread).

That said, I think this is definitely an improvement over what was here before.

Yeah the stop for bikes was not part of the original design, the traffic dept made us put them in. There’s some proposed legislation that would allow bikes to treat stops like yields though.

But for cyclists who are comfortable riding in mixed traffic, they are absolutely free to leave the cycletrack and bike through the vehicle lane if they want to be quicker, as they are legally allowed to. This crossing is an option for those cyclists who aren’t comfortable riding in traffic yet and want a crossing that moreso resembles a pedestrian crosswalk (because it’s also that). US design manuals for bike crossings at roundabouts are pretty lacking but in general, the crossings are always set back from the vehicle yield line by one car length so that a car waiting to enter the roundabout won’t block the crosswalk/crossbike.

https://goo.gl/maps/RbbmJPHqNbQcLqxP8

Sure, yes, bikes can use the vehicular lane to go around this, but this design has actually made that transition wildly more dangerous to do so, at least in one direction, than just having two unidirectional unprotected bike lanes (having to cross two lanes of traffic in an unpredictable way in order to enjoy the efficiency benefits of this intersection). This design has actually removed infrastructure that would've made that transition safer. Even fewer bike riders probably feel comfortable and confident doing this kind of maneuver than just taking the lane. The location of the yield line seems moot, since bikes will be required to stop for cars?

This design seems well-intentioned but ultimately still regressive, giving efficiencies only to cars, and adding marginal safety for bikes (maybe more for pedestrians?). I'm really curious to see how this intersection will work in practice.

Curious if you know, will there be follow-up studies of use and safety?

Worked inside the the Yale bowl for almost a year. This project must of started right after are new construction.

The one in Beaver Hills has definitely improved traffic safety. Witnessed a lot of accidents there before the roundabout was put in. Now occasionally someone will misjudge and hit a curb or a sign, but better a minor one-car accident at slow speeds than a multi-car accident at 60 mph. Still a lot of work that needs to be done to slow speeds approaching the roundabout, but it’s been a major improvement imo.

Eta: the bike lane in BH also need work, same with pedestrian crossings.

Wow,I like it but would really like to see roads like Frontage and Ella Grasso subjected to that. Would that be feasible? (Not frontage before the hospital though - I guess that is ambulance route)

Grasso was maybe the most dangerous road in town. Lots of accidents so many that's why

Is the center island raised up enough? The little roundabout on Edgewood was almost flush and people would drive over it

It's so drivers don't kill themselves with their stupidity (only bystanders).

looks great!

Are they allowing PEVs, or just bicycles? I used to ride my longboard all over new haven, and I would love to do the same on my electric one again.

Haha yep that was me!

I hope what I was doing was ok lol

Yes it’s a standard full height curb

I appreciate the different perspective you’re providing but i have to disagree that bike safety was only marginally approved as you say. The previous road had unprotected, door zone, paint only bike lanes that dropped out at a historically very dangerous intersection. Now, there is a 2-way bike facility that is off road, set back, and grade separated, with one crossing of chapel street split into two separate crossings with a median island and physical infrastructure that will force drivers to slow to 15-20 mph.

I’ve been biking through this to test it out frequently and I really don’t feel like there’s a noticeable difference in speed (maybe a few seconds) between taking the bike path around vs using the vehicle lane. I would encourage you to ride through it in all ways that you are able to, maybe experiencing it in person will provide some clarity compared to looking at a still photo.

Didn’t answer the question

“Just do it”- Nike

you want me to predict exactly when the first crash will be....?

... Who is gonna stop you?

Ideally greenways should be for all forms of Human-speed transportation. I have no idea what the actualy city policy is, though.

ya I don't understand how you're supposed to get from the west side of Chapel to the cycletrack across the peanut.. use the bumpy ass sidewalk and go all the way around and cross the crosswalk twice??

Im a bit confused why its up on a berm when you reach yale from there. It could potentially be dangerous for cyclists who are coming in fast and dont know the configuration.

The cycletrack is elevated with a retaining wall there because that area was an existing small hill to begin with. Since it's under the drip line of the overhead trees, there were concerns that cutting down the hill would severely damage the roots of the trees, so the cycletrack was graded in a way that it would sit on top of the hill and not require excavation in the critical root zone.

Got it. From my experience, 5x the width of the trunk is where is safe to excavate.

frontage and ella grasso are both state roads, so the city of new haven has very little recourse to improve them, unfortunately.

yes

No chance the tiller fire truck can go through that. They’ll have to go around when every second matters. There are power lines that run right above it too. Bucket truck with trailer is going to be rough there.

Thanks for the concern, Pete. It was designed to handle larger vehicles as well, so I just checked it again with a 57' tiller in AutoCAD Vehicle Tracking, which is a very conservative program, and it makes it through just fine in the directions that would make sense for a responding vehicle. The sharp movements (Yale S to Chapel W, Chapel W to Yale S) would not be logical routes given the location of fire stations in the city and availability of more suitable parallel roads.

eventually the town will paint the grass as a peanut for like national peanut day