Whitney ‘Highway’: why experts, advocates and residents say the road needs a revamp

Someone driving down Whitney Avenue will find a destination for just about any of their desires — drugstores, Dunkin Donuts, pizza shops, a funeral home, churches, bookstores.

A pedestrian on Whitney Avenue may never get to those destinations. The sidewalk starts and stops, leaving pedestrians forced to walk dangerously along the curb past cars going at least 40 miles an hour.

Most people who want to bike down Whitney Avenue simply don’t. There is no shoulder and no bike lanes to be found.

It’s the connector of Hamden and New Haven, yet it only connects those with a car. Some safe streets activists and concerned citizens say the time to make the road more accessible is now.

"Part of the goal with Whitney is to slow cars down to a speed where it doesn't feel like your life is at risk," said Lior Trestman, an activist with Safe Streets Coalition. "The drivers [would be] going slow enough that if they see your child start to walk toward the road they could slow down and have time to."

A state grant will fund an upcoming construction project on the New Haven side of Whitney Avenue, making it a more friendly road for pedestrians and bicyclists, but Hamden's side of the road is not part of the construction. Hamden resident Gabe Rosenburg has a few ideas for how to make the road safer and more economically beneficial for the town.

"It's a real concern, and sometimes people are going like 80 miles an hour down there and this is just unsustainable," Rosenburg said.