New Haven Safe Routes for All: Chapel Street Corridor

LEGAL NOTICE: The City of New Haven is seeking Statements of Qualifications (SOQ) to engage a Consulting Engineering Firm or Consulting Team to provide Design and Construction Engineering Services for the following transportation project. Selection will be based on professional competence and experience; cost will not be an evaluation factor at this stage.

The Safe Routes for All Chapel Street Corridor project will design safety improvements along a 1.6-mile segment of Chapel Street from Ella T. Grasso Boulevard (Route 10) on the west to State Street on the east. The project is funded by the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program and must comply with all relevant federal requirements. The project incorporates a range of safety countermeasures, including upgraded traffic signal equipment and operations (LPI, clearance intervals, etc), accessibility improvements, rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs), enhanced crosswalks, transit facility upgrades, bicycle facility upgrades, sidewalk replacements, ADA-compliant curb ramp upgrades, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, and conversions of select one-way streets to two-way operation. It involves the replacement and upgrade of 14 traffic signals; the scope includes six (6) full intersection signal replacements, six (6) signal upgrades, and two (2) partial signal replacements. The project will also implement a full fiber-optic communication network to integrate these signals into the City’s centralized Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS). In addition, the City is seeking Construction Engineering and Inspection services for when the project moves into construction.

Also included in the project are Supplemental Planning/Demonstration Activities. The Consulting Team will update the city’s High-Injury Network (HIN) map, originally developed in 2019 as part of the Safe Routes for All Action Plan. The existing map is based on pre-2020 data and will be enhanced using the most recent five years of crash data to better identify and prioritize corridors and intersections with high concentrations of fatal and serious injury crashes. In addition, the Consulting Team will enhance the city’s GIS tools by integrating police crash reports and narratives. This will provide deeper insights into crash patterns, contributing factors, and underlying causes, enabling more data-driven decision-making. The Consulting Team will conduct roadway safety studies using proactive safety analysis techniques, including video analytics, to identify conflict hotspots at intersections. These tools will support the development of detailed risk profiles for various roadway users and movements. By analyzing user interactions and near-miss events, the Consulting Team will improve its ability to select, implement, and evaluate targeted safety countermeasures before crashes occur.

The Consulting Team selected will be required to provide design services for the preparation of contract plans and will also be required to provide robust public engagement services, NEPA documentation, transportation planning services, survey, site and civil engineering services, traffic engineering services, construction inspection, documentation and reporting, as well as be familiar with federal requirements such as 2 CFR 200.

Firms responding to this request should be of adequate size and sufficiently staffed to perform the assignment described above.

The Consulting Team will be evaluated and selected based on design and technical competence, the capacity and capability to perform the work within the time allotted, past record of performance, past federal grant experience, and knowledge of Federal, State, and Municipal procedures, appropriately weighted in descending order of importance.

The Chapel Street corridor was selected based on a review and analysis of crash data showing it accounts for the third-highest number of fatalities, the highest number of serious injuries, the highest number of crashes across all city-owned streets, and a fatal and serious injury rate higher than any city-owned street. Additionally, Chapel Street intersects various other high-injury network corridors and is one of just two that link multiple historically disadvantaged neighborhoods of West River, Dwight and Edgewood to and through the City’s dynamic urban core.