Glossing over the matter of safety and likening the plaintiff’s issue with the Flower Street closure to one of “inconvenience,” the Superior Court in Hartford ruled to dismiss the lawsuit against James Redeker, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Christopher Brown had sought a writ of mandamus– a resolution that would require the CT DOT reopen Flower Street for cyclists and pedestrians as DOT’s hearing officer Judith Almeida had ruled previously. With the dismissal, the DOT is permitted to leave a city street permanently closed to all forms of traffic.

Attorney Ken Krayeske said the outcome was not unexpected. “We knew going in that a mandamus presents a unique challenge: how do you prove a plaintiff has a legal right to something?,” he said.

“We understood the uphill odds, but we filed because the Connecticut Department of Transportation relegates cyclists and pedestrians to second class citizenship,” Krayeske said.

View from the “mitigation path” that goes between Broad Street and Flower Street. The broken fence between the Interstate and path adds confidence for those expecting a safe route, free of wayward vehicles.

The DOT, now backed by the court, has said that an east-west path sufficiently mitigates the closure of a north-south route. The bike lanes on Broad Street have been accepted by them and the court as another solution to the closure. The new lanes and bike boxes on Broad Street were painted in November; the paint is already nearly completely eroded in places and few cyclists use it. According to dozens of cyclists, this stretch of Broad Street is not significantly safer since the installment of these lanes. In the last month, huge potholes in the Broad Street and Capitol Avenue intersection have not made things easier for those on two wheels. Although not directly part of the Flower Street situation, a nearby stretch of the East Coast Greenway which has been identified as the responsibility of the State had gone neglected for weeks while a large sheet of ice made walking and cycling a challenge.

The plaintiff, Christopher Brown, gave a statement implying that those making the decisions are out of touch: “This decision highlights how far removed our state’s officials are from the actual conditions on our streets. Bicyclists and pedestrians have been forced into harm’s way and this decision dismissively treats this sharply increased risk of injury or death as a simple inconvenience. It’s clear that we have more work to do.”

The so-called mitigation path is to the left. The chainlink fence separating it from the Interstate is visibly broken from where a minivan had exited the highway and come to rest near the path in January 2014.

The battle with the CT DOT, which is all tied to the CTfastrak [sic] project, had begun well before anyone stepped into the courtroom in January. There were various public hearings held during the work day and at the DOT headquarters on the Berlin Turnpike — a location that is difficult at best to reach for those who use public transit. Residents were denied official status that would give them a voice, and when some were permitted to speak without this status, they were essentially told this permission was granted out of kindness. Having a say in one’s own community was deemed a privilege, not a right. We were told that Aetna had planned to offer up legal support for residents, but then withdrew that offer suddenly. The City of Hartford, which had also been in dispute with the DOT over this street closure, also backed out without notice, making this announcement at the beginning of a hearing at DOT headquarters. The hearing and reconsideration hearing followed months of broken communication with residents and stakeholders; part of Almeida’s ruling spelled out that the state agency needed to improve its community outreach.

The City of Hartford has said this segment of East Coast Greenway path is the responsibility of the State. This swath of ice was neither salted nor sanded for several weeks; path users had to wait for temperatures to rise enough for it to melt away, as it was never apparently treated. This route is used as a safer alternative to the section of Capitol Avenue with the I-84 entrance and exit ramp.

But as of July, the disrespect continued in the form of comments made before a public meeting. In all of this, we learned that a PR firm advised those connected to CTfastrak to monitor but not comment on Real Hartford.

Brown said, “We had our day in court, which was a victory on its own.”

“We do not hang our heads in shame at this defeat, but leave it emboldened,” said Krayeske,”as ConnDOT stipulated and committed in court to building a pedestrian bridge.”

He said “there a silver linings in this cloud,” namely, that the plaintiff “used the opportunity of this case to communicate his concerns to ConnDOT.  We know ConnDOT listened. People in the community cheered this on, and felt empowered by Chris’ action. You can’t win ’em all, but sometimes you win by trying.”

So, the street remains closed to motor vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. The plan is still for the DOT to build an expensive bridge for cyclists and pedestrians which would span the railroad tracks and New Britain-to-Hartford busway, but as of November, the state agency stumbled when asked how this would be funded.

Memorandum of Decision: Brown vs. DOT