At Last, Whitney Redo To Begin

by Thomas Breen

Some of the improvements planned for Whitney near Cliff.

Sixteen years after then-East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar and then-aldermanic candidate Justin Elicker hosted a community meeting about how best to slow down cars and improve pedestrian safety on Whitney Avenue, the two elected officials — now a state representative and the city’s mayor, respectively — stood on the sidewalk at Whitney and Cliff Street to herald a $13.2 million state-funded roadway overhaul that is finally about to begin.

Lemar and Elicker were joined by City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, State Sen. President Martin Looney, and state Department of Transportation (DOT) Deputy Commissioner Laoise King, among others, to celebrate the imminent beginning of a Whitney Avenue redo.

“This is a long time coming,” Elicker said, echoing sentiments expressed by nearly everyone on the speaking lineup at Thursday’s presser.

When done, the roughly mile-and-a-half, city-owned stretch of Whitney Avenue between Trumbull Street and the Hamden town line will undergo a ​“road diet” — dropping from four vehicle travel lanes to three. It will also include protected two-way cycletrack on the eastern side of the road, raised intersections, shortened pedestrian crossings, permanent parking spots on one side of the road, and updated and synchronized traffic signals. The whole stretch will also be repaved.

Phase 1 will apply to Whitney between the Hamden town line and Canner Street; Phase 2 will apply to Whitney between Canner and Trumbull. 

Zinn said that construction on Phase 1 is set to begin next week, and should cost around $3.2 million. The two phases should be complete by 2027. (Phase 2 is so much more expensive than Phase 1, he said, because of how many more traffic signals there are between Trumbull and Canner than between Canner and Hamden.)

While public meetings around redoing Whitney stretch back at least a decade and a half, this specific traffic-safety-update plan dates back to at least 2019, when the city first found out about a tranche of state funds it would be receiving to support this traffic-calming project. Zinn said the city hosted three public meetings and reviewed hundreds of online comments on the proposal. One of the bigger delays to this project came when the city decided to replace all nine outdated traffic signals on the corridor.

Looney heralded this type of investment by the state as a ​“high water mark” for the DOT’s focus on not just highways, but also on municipal roadway safety improvements, citing state-backed traffic calming efforts on Foxon Boulevard, Quinnipiac Avenue, and Townsend Avenue.

“The state has been a reliable partner on reshaping, re-visioning, and re-determining” municipal arteries, Lemar said. This type of project is a recognition that Whitney Avenue can and should be a ​“building block for our community,” as opposed to just the fastest way from Hamden to New Haven.

“We’re going to beautify, we’re going to improve” this stretch of Whitney and make it easier to cross, East Rock/Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Kim Edwards said.

East Rock Alder Anna Festa thanked Whitney resident and local engineer Darko Jelaca — who stood nearby, watching the presser — for pushing and pushing to make sure that this project actually happens. 

“Darko,” she said, ​“it’s finally happening.”

Darko Jelaca: “I’m very happy about this. Finally. Ten years. It’s been a bit long.”

Elected officials celebrate Whitney redo’s imminent construction.