Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan

BETA is developing a Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan for the City of West Haven through the South Central Regional Council of Governments. West Haven is a shoreline community with areas of dense urban development adjacent to New Haven and more suburban development further to the west. The City has several distinct areas including the Downtown/The Center (with commercial areas, a town green, and metro-north rail station), the beachfront/shoreline, and the University of New Haven/Route 1/Allingtown area. Priority corridors were identified and public outreach was conducted via a virtual public meeting room and online survey. The plan development phase will include the designation of preferred facilities to serve bicycles and pedestrians along priority corridors and the development of project concepts for the City to move forward with at plan completion.

Some of the known priorities in the City include:

• Expansion of the Savin Rock Trail west to Milford, east to New Haven to allow for a number of planned future connections to regional trails
• Completion of sidewalk networks where there are existing gaps (in particular, along Route 1/Boston Post Road)
• Improvement of wayfinding and multi-modal accommodations in the vicinity of the trail station to complement planned TOD
• The reconfiguration of Ocean Avenue and Thomas Cook Boulevard to accommodate on-road bicycle facilities.

The Bicycle and Pedestrian Study will consist of the creation of a City-wide Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, which will be coordinated with State and regional plans and have an emphasis on facilitating intermodal connections to all areas of the City.