Station Access Planning

Park New Haven, which manages the New Haven's Union Station, has twice asked JVM Studio's Jonas Maciunas to help think through the challenges of improving access to the station, in the context of a city undergoing dramatic growth and change. 

Currently, the taxi and pickup/drop-off activity dominates the space between Union Avenue and the Beaux Arts station, transit connections from the station remain a relative afterthought, and despite significant bicycle parking, there is no bicycling infrastructure linking the station to the rest of the city.  During a day-long charrette focused on developing options to improve connections in the immediate station vicinity, Jonas provided the team with international precedents for great station plazas. With traffic analysis from collaborating consultants, he proposed a multimodal circulation pattern concept that utilizes all sides and entrances of the station. The team's resulting design frees up the Union Avenue side of the station for a more gracious station plaza by reorganizing taxi circulation and pickup/drop-off, better utilizes structured parking facilities, makes for a more robust transit presence, creates world-class bicycle facilities along Union Avenue, and anticipates for mixed-use development around the station.

Previously, Park New Haven consulted with Jonas to write the scope of services for a complex transportation planning study. The intent of the study was to understand the limits of existing/proposed parking infrastructure, the consequences of continuing to build more, and how to create a transportation demand management plan that supports the the continued growth of the medical district around Yale New Haven Hospital as a mixed-use neighborhood, reconnected to the downtown. The resulting study by the selected consultant, Nelson Nygaard, has created a collaborative platform for the City, CTTransit, and the medical district's major employers to work together in managing their transportation challenges.