Due to scheduling roadblocks, long-awaited plans to convert three blocks of Chapel Street to two-way traffic have been delayed to the spring. That new timeline was announced during an online meeting of the Traffic Authority Tuesday night. The project aims to establish two-way traffic on downtow n Chapel Street between College Street and York Street. At the moment, those blocks only allow for westward traffic. Before approving the conversion on Oct. 14, the traffic commissioners, who also also serve on the city’s Board of Police Commissioners, reviewed the project four times over five months. They delayed and even rejected the proposal out of concerns over fire safety, parking, and traffic congestion. The commission’s Oct. 14 approval required the Department of Transportation, Traffic, and Parking (TTP) to provide “stakeholders” with at least 30 days of notice before beginning work. While funded through a separate, $550,000 grant, the three-block conversion represents a piece of the Elicker administration’s broader efforts to improve a 1.6-mile stretch of Chapel Street — an $11 million project that involves converting the one-way portion of Chapel to two-way traffic; installing new, coordinated traffic signals; and building high-visibility crosswalks. On Tuesday, Bruce Fischer, a traffic operations engineer for TTP, said the project was initially delayed by the Harvard-Yale football game on Nov. 22. In meetings with TTP, Fischer said business owners and representatives of Yale raised concerns about road work confusing customers and decreasing sales during an important weekend for local businesses. Postponing until after the game, however, ran into the city’s holiday moratorium, which bans construction work downtown from the Sunday before Thanksgiving until after New Years Day, according to a letter signed by TTP Director Haley Simpson. That same letter also states that temperatures in the 50’s and above are required to install pavement markings for the conversion. Fischer noted on Tuesday that the city’s contractor was generally concerned about completing work in freezing weather. “We determined that the best thing was to wait until after the winter season, when we would have the opportunity to do it under proper weather conditions,” Fischer told the commission. There are also some “outstanding items” to work out with the relevant “stakeholders,” he added, though he did not describe those concerns on Tuesday. He said the department is putting together notices to Chapel Street occupants now, which will include an exact start date for the road work. The post 2-Way Chapel Conversion Slated For Spring appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less