Yale Daily News

The Mayor should also let Yale close High Street (that is the street between old campus and JE/Branford, right?) between Chapel and Elm. This one way street can't take much traffic, but it takes enough that you need to be careful. The street should be closed off and made a pedestrian area only (maybe some nice trees in the median, etc.). Would improve the ambience of this part of campus immensely while also improving safety greatly with no significant impact on traffic flow in the area. But the Mayor says "No, this is New Haven street, not a Yale street." How petty. And stupid. Most cities to have as incredibly a beneficial thing as Yale would be kissing Yale's ass so hard their lips would pop out of Yale's belly button. But not this fellow=you can't close off a small street that really causes me no harm even tho it would benefit Yale greatly "because its mine and you can't have it."

To Yale: Before you take in new students by adding two new colleges, take better care of the students you have by ditching loans and work requirement for aid (plus give better grants; your competitors often beat you significantly). Yale could do it so easily given the size of the endowment (Great job, Mr. Swensen! You deserve to be the highest paid Yale person!). So Yale do that first and then talk about adding new colleges. Reorder your priorities: better financial aid for the people here now, then new colleges.

To the previous commenter: Good point about closing High Street. The mayor is extremely shortsighted by assuming that by closing a street to vehicular traffic is somehow ceases to be a "New Haven" street. High Street would become a pedestrian mall--a great urban European tradition--that is accessible to the entire city, not just Yalies. Cars don't equal city.

High Street has already been truncated--between Elm and Grove.

Emergency service vehicles need access to the lane south of Elm, so you'll never have a tree-filled median.

You live in a city, and cities have cars. Deal with it.

While every city has cars, some of the best, most lively areas of some of the world's greatest cities are car-free. While there is not enough space here to go into a long dissertation about the many factors of why this works and when it is or is not appropriate, it is clear that the lack of cars creates a much friendlier, enjoyable urban environment. You can still have emergency vehicle access as long as the trees are strategically place.

I'm not necessarily saying this should happen here. But it's definitely worth considering. "Cities have cars. Deal with it" is not the sort of visionary thinking I would expect from a Yale student or from anyone who really cares about New Haven.

Just look both ways before you cross the street. I think Yalies should be able to handle the basics of crossing such a small street. Besides, closing off High St. would increase the traffic on York and College. It would make things much more dangerous for students if there were even more cars speeding down York. It makes sense to have High St. closed between Elm and Wall but it would be ridiculous to close it between two very busy city streets, Chapel and Elm. It would also make garbage collecting for parts of Old Campus and JE strategically difficult. And deliveries to and from the post office would have to be made from parked vehicles on Berkeley's side of Elm St. Really, it would be a strategic nightmare.

But I do agree that the University should be more focused on "taking care better care of the students already here" before adding more. One suggestion would be for Yale to adopt a "no loans" policy like Princeton's.