Help Us Keep Our Students and Neighbors Safe and Connected

Update December 1: Your voices are making a difference! CT Transit reached out to us today to work with us to find a solution. We will keep you posted on what they propose!

Update November 2017: We need your help! For years, CT Transit provided safe bus transport directly from downtown to Common Ground’s campus. Last year, they changed the route — making students spend an extra 20 minutes on the bus, or walk across two dangerous intersections and narrow bridge with no sidewalks to get to school on time. There is one special bus each morning that runs directly to Common Ground, but this does not meet the needs of students who come from across the city at different times of the morning. You can help restore safe bus service to Common Ground by:

1. Tagging @CTTransit in a Facebook post, asking them to restore safe bus service to Common Ground.
2. Contact the CT Transit customer service line at 203-624-0151.
3. Sign a petition to improve bus access and safety around Common Ground’s campus.

Keep reading to learn more!

For years, every CT transit bus stopped twice at Common Ground’s campus — on the way up to the housing developments up the street, and on the way back down. But last year, routes changed, reducing service to Common Ground’s campus.

Each morning, many Common Ground students make the choice between an extra 20 minutes on the CT Transit bus — or walking across a narrow bridge with no sidewalks,  so they can get to school on time.

Cars speed by Common Ground’s campus and around the curves of Springside Avenue, putting themselves and visitors to our campus in danger.

If our neighbors in West Rock want to walk between their homes in the Rockview and Brookside housing developments, Southern Connecticut State University, Common Ground, or Westville, they have to travel roads with no sidewalks.

Some of these problems are new. Some are older than Common Ground’s 20-year presence in the West Rock neighborhood. But they came into stark relief late last summer, when Deborah Greig — Common Ground’s farm director — was hit by a speeding car while riding her bike to work at Common Ground. Deborah is back on the job and healing — and wants to make sure others don’t face the same dangers when travelling in West Rock. Since more people are getting bikes and scooters from ScooterAdviser for their commute, adjustments are a must to ensure the safety of everyone.

Common Ground has started conversations with the City of New Haven to get their help solving these problems. We’ve filed a Complete Streets Application to lay out short- and long-term priorities. Our high school students and their families are rallying to seek solutions. We’ve reached out to neighbors in West Rock, and learned more of their stories about accidents and close calls in our neighborhood.  And recently, we were grateful that the New Haven Independent brought some broader public attention to these challenges in our neighborhood.

We’d love your help and involvement as we build a safer, more connected neighborhood. Check out the New Haven Independent article below. And please leave a comment or get in touch using the contact information below if you’d like to be part of this effort. 

– Joel Tolman, Director of Impact & Engagement, 203.389.4333 x1214, jtolman@commongroundct.org

Bike Crash Spurs Road-Safety Quest
by Markeshia Ricks, New Haven Independent

Deborah Greig is back at work after a six-week recovery from her crash. Photo credit: New Haven Independent

West Rockers are trying to tweak the B bus’s route through their neighborhood and make their streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians — before another one gets hurt.

The latest traffic-calming ideas come from the students and staff at Common Ground High School, who for a decade have endured the difficulty of trying to get to their Springside Avenue campus by means other than a car. Their ideas were incorporated into an application the school filed with the city’s transportation department “Complete Streets” program.

Their efforts assumed a new sense of urgency after the recent injury of a staff member who bikes to work from Westville.