In the last week, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp has given promising answers to many of the questions that transportation advocates have been asking. Last week, the administration announced it would study transit improvements within New Haven, and earlier this week, Mayor Harp named a new city transportation director, Doug Hausladen, who has a strong record on traffic safety and complete streets.

Hausladen, who was elected a city alder in 2011, has a history of sustainable transportation activism. As a private citizen, Hausladen pushed for a state complete streets law and helped win pedestrian safety improvements at a downtown intersection. As an alder, he pushed for improvements to Route 34 and for legislation to allow municipalities to use cameras to enforce red-light running, which would improve safety in New Haven (73 pedestrians were killed or injured in the city in 2010 alone).

Hausladen has big shoes to fill. His predecessor, Jim Travers, implemented several pedestrian and bicycle improvements and unveiled ambitious plans, like Connecticut’s first protected cycle track, and the conversion of several downtown streets from one-way to two-way traffic. He was also proactive in Hartford, journeying to the capitol multiple times to testify in support of red-light camera legislation.

Another Harp appointeee, new economic development director Matthew Nemerson revealed last week that the City would seek to revive a streetcar study that had been voted down in prior years. The previous administration had envisioned a 1.5-mile streetcar line connecting Union Station with the Science Hill neighborhood, Gateway Community College, Yale Medical Center, and other destinations. But Mayor Harp, addressing concerns that the proposal would benefit only part of the city, said in a statement that the revived study would include broader outreach — and potentially a broader scope:

[T]ransportation is a civil rights issue, it’s an economic development issue, it’s a jobs issue. Too many residents in our community struggle to find suitable transportation to get to work, to a doctor’s appointment, or to the grocery store. With better public transportation we can work to ensure a better quality of life for residents, particularly economically vulnerable families and seniors.

The Harp administration also intends to keep pushing the Downtown Crossing project to replace the Route 34 stub highway with new development and a connected street grid. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy agreed to push for funds to improve the connectivity of the downtown street grid as part of the Downtown Crossing project, but the biggest remaining questions is how hard the City  will push for a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly Route 34 design. So far, the project’s first phase has underwhelmed.