Running the city’s Transportation, Traffic Parking (TTP) Department is a bit like conducting a symphony that never ends. At any given intersection, there are people walking, cycling, and skating, rolling in wheelchairs and pushing strollers. There are cars and buses, ambulances and tow trucks . Sometimes a construction site will pop up, or a traffic light will crash to the ground, or a snow plow will need to get through. For more than four years, Sandeep Aysola served as the orchestra’s lead conductor — designing infrastructure and employing a medley of signage, signals, and enforcement with the goal of reducing cacophony. Now, he’s stepping back, leaving the orchestra in the hands of new TTP Director Haley Simpson. According to Aysola, whose term ended on Jan. 31, he decided not to stay on with the city for another four-year term because the last four years were “extremely stressful,” if also “extremely rewarding.” He worked 50-hour weeks, sometimes staying overnight in the office during logistically chaotic snowstorms. “I was getting a lot of gray hairs,” he said. He said he plans to spend more time with his family before seeking out any new job opportunities. In a text message, Mayor Justin Elicker wrote that Aysola “put an incredible amount of energy into the role and the city is a better place because of him. I’m very grateful to him for his service to New Haven.” Over the last several years, Aysola’s department has embarked on several large-scale, long-term projects that will permanently change the way pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers interact with one another in the city. Those initiatives include the overhaul of major roads such as lower State Street, the planned implementation of new traffic cameras, the introduction of rentable bikes and scooters as well as a “micro-transit” ride-share program, and a redesign of the city’s downtown bus route hub, among many others. For any given project, TTP might work alongside other departments to identify and apply for grant funding, conduct a traffic study to assess the possible impacts of the proposed changes, solicit community feedback, work on designs, potentially oversee construction, and redirect traffic around the construction site. TTP has to anticipate every possible ramification of every traffic-calming measure — impacts that need to be accounted for, even if they can’t always be mitigated. Will narrowing a major street create more side street traffic? Is there enough room at each intersection for a city bus to turn? What time of day do cars usually exit each driveway? What about the annual block party that closes down the street? Still, Aysola said during an interview with the Independent on Tuesday, one of his primary takeaways from his time at TTP is that the “small things… end up becoming really big.” Take, for instance, what Aysola heralded as the overlooked heartbeat of city transit: traffic signals. Traffic signals (a term for the system of traffic lights located at each intersection) are among the most expensive forms of infrastructure that TTP stewards, costing up to half a million dollars to install. New Haven has about 300 traffic signals, which according to Aysola is more than the entire state of New Hampshire. Aysola said that some of those signals are seven or eight decades old. The city allocates about $200,000 every two years toward traffic-light maintenance, he said. Every upgrade has to consider structural integrity — “you don’t want it to fall,” he said. Traffic signals can be arranged to promote safety — for instance, by providing pedestrians and cyclists a head start crossing the street. The city is increasingly setting pedestrian walk signals to run automatically, rather than requiring the press of a button. Soon, thanks to relatively recent state and city legislation, some will be equipped with cameras to help enforce red lights and speed limits. Disability access is part of the “bread and butter” of TTP, Aysola said — and integral to a broader goal of designing streets that work for “the most vulnerable people,” from young children to elderly residents. And recently, under Aysola’s leadership, the city has begun to make more traffic signals accessible to visually impaired pedestrians. At the intersection of Chapel and College, for instance, the city has installed Accessible Pedestrian Signals that audibly instruct pedestrians about the status of the walk signs and vibrate after being activated. “We still have a long way to go” in the quest to make city infrastructure more accessible, Aysola stressed. He said that goal is integrated into the day-to-day work of TTP, whether by accommodating wheelchair users when designing new sidewalks, installing tactile pads by the curb for visually impaired people, or accounting for people crossing the street at a slower-than-average pace. Aysola has emerged from his four-year stint as TTP director with a greater appreciation for those “small” details, and others. He knows about the work it takes to maintain thousands of traffic signs across the city, to paint zebra-style crosswalks that are more noticeable to drivers, to address illegal parking with a small (though growing) team of parking officers, or to safely direct cars at school drop-off. It’s this attention to detail that Aysola hopes more New Haven drivers (and drivers from out of town) will learn to adopt. “Building that culture of safety has been very, very, very challenging,” he reflected. “The most dangerous weapon that we have these days is an automobile.” In other words, the orchestra still needs conducting. Now, Aysola can step back and listen. The post Ex-Dept. Head Looks To The Lights appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less