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03/17/2020 02:28 PMThe Guilford Safe Streets Task Force, a little under a year after forming, is asking the Board of Selectmen (BOS) to adopt a resolution encouraging town departments and planning elements to incorporate a “complete streets” plan into the town’s various projects and long-term agendas, seeking to make Guilford a safer and more traversable community for pedestrians and cyclists.
The BOS did not adopt the resolution, but will plan to consider it at a future meeting.
The task force was created in April 2019 in response to resident complaints about a handful of specific pedestrian improvements and pedestrian safety in general, with the hope that a task force can help guide a more orderly and transparent approach to similar issues and efforts in future. Task force member Mary Jo Kestner, who presented to the BOS on March 2, said the task force has found that its mission requires cooperation by almost every department, and many other stakeholders in town.
““What we’re looking for is support from the BOS to say, ‘All the town departments are going to start working on this.’ And we’re happy to be at the forefront of it,” said Kestner.
The template and plan the task force hopes to use comes from a national non-profit called Smart Growth America, which works with communities in a planning and consulting capacity and advocates for better public transport and diverse housing choices, according to its website smartgrowthamerica.org. According to Kestner, more than a dozen cities in Connecticut have already adopted the Complete Streets plan, including Madison.
The plan, which Kestner provided to the Courier in draft form, calls for high-level commitments from essentially every town department, commission, or committee that deals with roads or transportation to “incorporate Complete Streets principles into appropriate plans, regulations, and programs within three years.”
Those principles range from consideration of historical town character to connecting and strengthening improvements that allow access to public transit.
The plan also calls for a Complete Streets integration into Guilford’s Plan of Conservation and Development and Transportation Plan by the end of this year.
Though a good portion of what the plan and the task force hopes to do is add more sidewalks and bike lanes to Guilford’s streets, Kestner said that is hardly the whole picture.
“In a lot of cases, it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “But where we can put them, if they’re useful, we want.”
Having been at work on these issues for almost a year, Kestner said the task force has found that what this means from the perspective of every different town department varies widely.
“It’s really a lot of people that really need to rethink the way they approach the design of roads and connectivity,” Kestner said. “We realized that parts of the plan touched the whole town.”
Essentially every idea or improvement has to be checked off with everyone who deals with that portion of a street or sidewalk, Kestner said. Whether it is making sure public works’ trucks are still able to effectively plow a road after an improvement or checking with Police and Fire departments about whether a new stoplight could cause a safety hazard, creating these new safety measures or conveniences has to be comprehensive, according to Kestner.
Even beyond that, Kestner said often what the task force is asking the town to is scrutinized by state agencies, creating another area where additional red tape and delays can slow down progress.
Not everything is moving slowly, Kestner said. Some town agencies are already working on initiatives in line with the Complete Streets plan. Kestner specifically cited the Police Department’s Traffic Enforcement Unit, which according to Guilford Police Department Sergeant Martina Jakober seeks to curb accidents and create safer road conditions both through enforcement operations and studying problem areas or intersections.
Kestner said she has also been working directly with Town Engineer Janice Plaziak to integrate the task force’s principles—especially sidewalks and bike lanes—into priority projects the town is working on.
Kestner mentioned a planned sidewalk near exit 58 that would run through the underpass as one of those priority projects.
First Selectman Matt Hoey said that the he hoped the BOS would officially adopt the resolution at its next regular meeting, as legal counsel works through a few issues that he characterized as “not substantial.”