Big news for improving bike-walk-transit safety design on Connecticut state roads! The CT Department of Transportation (CTDOT) recently announced its new Complete Streets Design Criteria, which requires all future CTDOT construction projects, unless formally exempted by the Chief Engineer, to focus on three additional areas in roadway design:
• Pedestrian facilities – includes sidewalks, shared use paths, or side paths on both sides of the roadway.
• Bicycle facilities – includes paved outside shoulders, bike lanes, separated bike paths, or shared use paths on both sides of the roadway.
• Transit provisions – includes crosswalks, shelters, benches, and other ways to make existing or proposed transit stops more accessible.
How will this new policy affect our community? Last month, CTDOT requested public feedback on the Bishops Corner redesign of the intersection at Albany and Main in West Hartford (project 0155-0176). Bike West Hartford submitted our July 26th comments to CTDOT, which described how this pedestrian-oriented redesign could be improved for walkers and also to address bicycle and transit users.
Today, Bike West Hartford wrote to the CTDOT engineer in charge of our local project to ask: “Since it is our understanding that the Bishops Corner 0155-0176 project has not yet received a final design approval, please confirm if the new design criteria will be applied to this project as a matter of good practice and principle.” We will share CTDOT’s response when we receive it.