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NYC is closing them down too. Too bad - I think some good things came from the pandemic and one of them was dining outdoors even in less than ideal weather.

How ridiculous; free or cheap street parking takes up so much room in this city when there are far more spaces than would ever be needed in garages and surface lots. We desperately need safer streets for everyone, and outdoor dining is a key part to opening the street to everyone as a community instead of hunks of metal taking up valuable space. The spaces around the aforementioned restaurants should be pedestrianized anyway for the city to move forward and improve safety for everyone.

A parking spot costs someone feeding a meter $18 per day. If the city gains tax revenues from the restaurant, presumably it'd be more than that? Free parking Sundays. Maybe their outdoor dining could be on wheels for Sunday deployment?

Also, College St is delightful with the flexible bollards blocking one lane (and dozens of meters), causing major traffic headaches. Will they be removing these obstacles?

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This is rediculous for one It's snowed twice all year. If new haven is so concerned why not have the owners shovel around their terraces.

This is a pretty frustrating article bc the one in the Independent tells a rather different story— that outdoor dining permits are seasonal and that the spots can return in April. The problem seems to be why fine/press for removal so close to the spring return:

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/outdoor_cafes_get_late_winter_ultimatum

Street parking is important, and it helps drive up downtown foot traffic. Many people prefer it for short errands, as opposed to parking lots or garages, which are perceived as less convenient and .ore expensive.

I can say from experience that street parking is much harder to find than it was 25 or so years ago, when I could reliably find a spot across from Blockbuster Video on Chapel Street on weekend evenings.

I recently had the experience of driving around the city for close to half an hour looking for a spot at midday on a Thursday.

I'm a big fan of outdoor dining and would hate to lose the steps forward we've made since 2020. But we can't brush off the importance of street parking.

It sounds like there's a good chance they can keep the outdoor seating areas up. In the article Mayor Elicker was saying that snow removal was the main issue, (which is weird considering we're almost done with winter) and he was having a meeting to decide whether to let them STAY or start the fine$. I for one would like the outdoor dining structures to stay, they make the city prettier imo.

parking in a garage was less convenient & more expensive than driving around for half an hour looking for street parking?

Lol was this written by an SUV

Absolutely goofy to give these restuarants a hard time about this, we need less not more street parking, especially on a narrow street like Wooster where the Zeneli's spot is. People zip down it in oversized trucks and SUVs like theyre to hoping to hit someone, not to mention the through-traffic and GPS followers that blindly take it thinking its the best way to get to the I-95 on ramp.

I love the outdoor dining.

Honestly, I'm glad it's more difficult for you to find a street parking spot; that's extremely valuable land that's being taken up for storage for a couch, a couple recliners, a sound system, and some cupholders 🤷🏻‍♂️

College Street should just be pedestrianized; the flex posts don't block anything, people still park in the "bike lane", and use the free street parking.

City garages generally match pricing with meters so it’s basically the same and much much easier to deal with.

We can have a long discussion about the difference between how people ought to behave and how they actually do behave. We live in a car-centric society; I'd love to be more like Copenhagen, but for the foreseeable future, we have to play the cards as they lay.

There is a role for street parking, just like there is a role for garages, bike lanes, pedestrian throughways, outdoor dining, etc. Frankly, I think we use our downtown streets inefficiently. I'd like to see more of all of the above.

Both have their role. If I get a craving for Arethusa on my way back from the train station, a garage is not a great option.

I’ve been fighting this for years now over on Orange St. One of the minor (minor, minor) silver linings of Covid was getting the approval for some closures at least temporarily. I’ve been trying to get everything lined up for a permanent situation but it’s really herding cats with all the different entities involved.

The thing that gets me the most is the snow removal bullshit though. We can’t turn this street into a permanent closure because we need to plow it because it’s a street… cool.

Unequivocally having that closure on our block has been a boon to businesses and created a much better sense of community with everyone having places to hang out.

A slight bit more convenience for people from outside the city driving through, assuming one of the handful of spots directly in front of your destination is even available at any given time, seems like a bad trade off for the significant positive impact outdoor spaces and closures have on everyone actually living and working in and around the neighborhood.

Walking a couple blocks to get where you’re going is pretty normal city parking. But turning that parking space right in front of Arethusa into nice outdoor seating is going to make a lot more people happy and do a lot more for the neighborhood.

this is exactly it!!

Then let's have that long discussion. I agree there's a place for everything you mentioned to a point, but the city has thousands and thousands of unused spaces. The area these take up isn't nearly as large as, say, Hartford, but it's still a big portion of the city's most valuable land. There are strides being made, but it's not enough yet.

There's no reason New Haven couldn't lead the charge in vision zero and safe streets in its class of mid-sized cities.

It seems like this only applies to built structures? A bunch of the places on college just put out tables and chairs, and aren't mentioned here really.

I completely agree with your sentiment. Making streets more friendly to pedestrians does wonders to foster community and create a livable city.

However, unless I'm overlooking something important, even pedestrian streets need to plowed. Often times these streets have an early-hours window for deliveries. More importantly, there may issues related to safety. Emergency vehicles need access in case of fires and other unforeseen situations. I am not an expert in fire codes, but this may have something to do with the need to clear the snow from the road.

I could go into more details on it all but the short is that for the half block in question the traffic study has been done for “permanent” closure (like Broadway in the city) and those issues are satisfactorily addressed. For example, there are no doors beyond the range of to code fire truck access from the ends of the closure.

A hybrid approach is still much cooler than nothing and I’m so happy to have it, but going full closure stops it from being a street in need of any services like plowing so a lot of the issues stop being a thing when it’s treated as a plaza.

the United States is finally realizing that outdoor street stuff is awesome and leads to a better city vibe as opposed to the pure insanity of CT streets. i love the sprawling seating, and despite the perspective of less east parking, i really really hope the fines disappear.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

I don't see why your convenience is more important than the quality of life and safety of the people walking and using these streets every day and living in the city. A lane of parking can easily be converted to a dedicated bus or bike lane which would move far more people than just you in your car.

THIS. Its so infuriating. Doubly so for Chapel St. through downtown. I've had so many near misses from dooring or getting hit in that painted bike gutter between the travel lane and "parking lane".

Wow. You certainly put some words in my mouth there. I think we could do all of the above with some planning and commitment.

For what it's worth, we're stuck with cars, and no amount of utopian pipe dreaming is going to change that. Find a way of unwinding 75 years of building our communities -- and literally our whole country -- around the automobile, and we can talk about buses and bikes as primary modes of transportation.

So yes. By all means, build bike lanes and bus lanes and pedestrian streets, but if we want to attract suburbanites to New Haven's stores and theaters and restaurants (and I'm old enough to remember what the city was likebl when suburbanites wouldn't come near downtown), we're going to need good parking options that meet their various needs.

I think we can do all of the above. There is a lot of wasted roadway capacity in downtown New Haven. Everywhere I look, I see broad streets that accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction, plus parking, and still manage to become choke points because of standing bases, delivery vehicles, and inefficient traffic management. We can do better.

My apologies I didnt mean to put words in your mouth. However, your premise is flawed, the health of cities doesnt hing on "attracting suburbanites". Plenty of studies have shown tax revenues generated in the urban center are what subsidize suburban life and infrastructure, not the other way around. Suburbs are by and large financially insolvent, dependent on debt financing and continuous expansion to pay for their own infrastructure.

Downtown businesses also routinely overestimate how much out of town car-travel custom they get, they're mostly running on foot traffic and local demand.

Also, the notion that suburbanites have to take cars to use urban amenities is just wrong, plenty of cities around the world in Asia and Europe do fine with high quality frequent rail service. Its not a pipe dream at all, it is in fact exactly the kind of infrastructure we had in the US for the first half of the 20th century.

Edited to add - saw something on another subreddit that nicely sums up my argument in re: infrastructure. We dont need to bulldoze more of our cities for the sake of the car: https://www.reddit.com/r/bikecommuting/comments/11ncpvp/a_city_designed_around_driving_doesnt_work_for/