Justin

  • Parks Acknowledged
    134 Goodwin Park Road Hartford, Connecticut - South End

    It's spring, but Goodwin Park looks like h#ll still with all of the junk advertisements and scaffolding from the auto-centric light show still hanging around in the park. And the Goodwin Park Road is still open to traffic, often fast moving and dangerous.

    It would be great to see the City parks department work with the advertising-lights show producers to require that they remove their junk in a timely manner. Otherwise Goodwin just looks like a dumping ground for this event. As a city do we really want our much vaunted, famous Olmstead-designed park to look like heck for half the year? It's beyond me, but I just moved here, I guess maybe I don't get the inspiration behind such decisions.

    In the meantime, the trail and turf in the far southwestern corner of the park is still ruined and it appears the forestry work still going on in that area of the park continues to be done with little regard for tearing up the turf.

  • Goodwin Park 141-211 Hubbard Road, Hartford, Connecticut - South End

    There is a new, completely dark, impossible-to-see-in-the-dark-unless-you-know-its-there barrier on this southern portion of the closed road in Goodwin Park. The offending barrier is right where the placemark is on this map. It needs reflectors if its going to be put there to close the road. I almost ran right into it tonight on my bike commute home from work.

    It's pretty clear this is due to the auto-centric elves currently changing up what is a calm, alternative, safe commute and leisure route for bicycles and walkers into a route for distracted, dangerous, non-stop evening car traffic during the Festival of Lights.

    I support the Festival of Lights in the Park, but maybe it could be time to at least start thinking about making this less of a car-centric event and more of a walk or sled through type of event?

  • Parks Archived
    Fairfield Avenue Hartford, Connecticut - Behind The Rocks
    An ornamental, brick pillar with steel cables running through it (basically an older, fancy guard rail) is down and out for the count -- decimated by a vehicle that crashed into it. Looks like hell.
  • 60-92 Zion Street Hartford, Connecticut - Behind The Rocks
    A perennial issue I know, there is trash pretty much all over Rocky Ridge Park with particularly high concentrations along Zion Street and on and just below the overlook point just west of the intersection of Vernon and Summit Streets. Tons of trash and dumping in the southernmost portion of the park as well, both in the hidden away little area below New Britain Ave and along the top shelf of the park that runs along Summit Street in the park's southern end.
  • New Britain Ave And Fairfield Avenue Hartford, Connecticut - Behind The Rocks

    This busy, dangerous intersection with limited visibility in some directions should have a dedicated pedestrian-only signal phase like many other busy intersections in the city. This is a heavily walked area and is a key point of connection bewteen the South West, Behind the Rocks, Barry Square, and Trinity College neighborhoods, not to mention between Hyland and Rocky Ridge Parks.

    It is incredibly challenging and scary to cross at this intersection. Just today I crossed with the light and had aggravated drivers rushing me across.

  • 153 Fairfield Avenue Hartford, Connecticut - South West
    ATVs in Hyland Park this afternoon, tearing through playground. Tore up grass at South end of the Park on grassy hill.
  • Roxbury And Fairfield Ave Hartford, Connecticut - South West

    A yellow box truck has been parked IN Hyland Park all summer, over the curb and up on the grass. Even now with the CNG and MDC trucks and stuff no longer 'parked' up on this part of Hyland Park, this truck remains.

    I've reported illegal parking via See Click Fix before and the information was successfully conveyed to the Hartford Parking authority or whichever office is responsible for ticketing & towing. Hope this can be sent there too--we need to get this truck out of our park. (Also, there should just a section for "illegal parking" reports.)

  • Goodwin Park Road Hartford, Connecticut - South End

    Happy to see that the concrete barriers were moved back into place on the Goodwin Park Road. Reflectors have been placed on the 'outside' of the southernmost concrete blocks so that they could be seen at night when a light is shined on them. These blocks need reflectors on both sides so that cyclists using the park in the twilight and evening hours can see them from both sides.

    There have been cases of people on bikes getting severely injured by unmarked (unreflectored) bollards and barriers like this and I'm afraid it leaves the city open the risk of being sued.

    Image is of the 'backside' of the southernmost concrete barriers.

    Thanks. Justin

  • Hyland Park Parking Lot Hartford, Connecticut - South West
    Every afternoon and evening that there are ball games in the park one or two jerks decide to park in the poorly striped spot of the parking lot that should be left open so that people can access the curb cut to the pedestrian path. It would be great if signage could be improved here and if the parking dept could start checking and ticketing illegally parked cars here when there are games to get it to stop. Thanks.
  • Goodwin Park Road Hartford, Connecticut - South End

    The concrete barriers placed at two points of the park road in Goodwin Park have been moved several times over the past several weeks and have now been pushed completely off the road. Assuming this hasn't been done on purpose by the parks department, this needs to be fixed and these barriers should be more firmly attached to the road.

    As a great space for families to walk and bike through the park, and for people to ride bikes, it's pretty dangerous not knowing whether there is going to be traffic ripping through the park or not.

  • 171-225 Cheshire Street Hartford, Connecticut - South West
    Stop sign on Cheshire facing Linmoore is completely faded.
  • 53 Wall Street New Haven, Connecticut - Town_Green
    Crossing Church Street on Wall in the northernmost crosswalk at this intersection is scary and dangerous. Cars making a left onto Church from Wall Street often fail to notice or pay attention to pedestrians crossing this wide street. A pedestrian signal with a 'headstart' of four to six seconds would greatly improve this situation. By 'headstart' I mean five seconds or so of a walk signal before the cars at Wall St get their green light. This gives peds the chance to establish their position in the crosswalk before cars can speed into it. This is a common practice in cities in the United States.
  • Hungerford Street Hartford, Connecticut - Downtown
    Massive square sheet of ice with no path through or around on walking path between Broad and Asylum downtown next to Bushnell Park. Path is relatively clear except for this spot. I biked over it tonight on the way home from the train station and it was horrifying. US Army reserve captain coming the other way in full boots also having trouble. Please salt and remove if possible. Thanks.
  • Hungerford Street Hartford, Connecticut - Downtown
    The lit bike and pedestrian path through the park goes dark as you go up and over the bridge. It's a safety issue and could really use illumination.
  • Union Place Hartford, CT - Downtown

    There is an unreadable, unusable map on the lower, main level of Union Station. The image is so pixelated you can't read street names.

    A couple friends rode the train up from New Haven last weekend and reported this. I've also seen it in person. They came to Hartford to go to the Twain house and had to orient themselves with absolutely no help from this terrible map.

    You see stuff like this in the city and wonder whether anyone is actually serious about ever inviting other people to visit here. Having such a map in place sends a clear and obvious message to 'outsiders' that if you don't already know you're way around, why bother? If iQuilt signs are throughout the city, and it is about walking, then why not at Union Station? These friends, Brits, walked down Farmington to the Twain house with 0 help from the city's infrastructure. Nuts, and what a missed opportunity.

  • 753 Capitol Avenue Hartford, Connecticut - West End
    Nice bike lanes on Capitol and West Blvd have no been painted with bike lane markings indicating that they are in fact bike lanes. In a few spots it's clear the city did mark spots for painting the stencils but they have not been put in. Will help drivers and cyclists know what these lanes are for.
  • Pratt St Hartford, CT - Downtown
    There is no bike parking on Pratt Street, even though its our city's most dense street. Let's not add just one bike rack, but a whole stable of racks so that more people will want to bike to the shops and restaurants on Pratt. New Haven just added a bike corral, let's do it too. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/bike_corral_debuts_downtown/