Courtesy of Chris Schweitzer

Dozens of New Haven residents took to the streets with the New Haven Climate Movement to push for more public transportation use and promote NHCM’s Transportation Transformation Resolution, which they are petitioning to the Board of Alders this month.

NHCM’s Zombie CARmageddon event took over Chapel and High streets from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Friday. Through their promotion of the resolution, combined with Halloween celebrations, NHCM has gained over 200 petition signatories.

The Halloween event was an extension of NHCM’s “DeCARbonize the Oceans” campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the impact transportation emissions have on oceans, specifically emissions from cars. NHCM youth leaders Snigtha Mohanraj ’24 and Adrian Huq YSE ’26 highlighted the need to eliminate personal vehicle use. 

“We put on this Halloween event to call attention to the “scary” car culture in the United States and the need for people to break away from being “zombies” to their vehicles, which pollute the environment and can cause harm to others like bikers and pedestrians,” Huq said. 

Transportation makes up 38 percent of Connecticut’s emissions. 

Mohanraj added that in order to achieve zero emissions by 2030 as outlined in the City’s 2019 Climate Emergency Resolution, public transportation needs to be more accessible.

“Our high usage of personal vehicles emitting greenhouse gasses is one of the most significant contributors to climate change,” Mohanraj said. “We are advocating to shift away from this, especially through investment in public transportation.”

The event also aimed to promote NHCM’s Transportation Transformation resolution. 

The resolution notes that not enough progress has been made in Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“2030 is just around the corner which is really scary, and we need all the departments to kind of work together,” another NHCM youth activist Amelia Lee ’26 said. “They all need plans for how to work towards a 25 percent reduction. By 2030 we want the city to really commit money towards this cause and also funding.”

The resolution urges the Board of Alders to enact a ‘transformative approach’ that includes the CT Transportation, Traffic and Parking Department, to report within six months to the Board of Alders a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

In alignment with these goals, NHCM also calls for free bus passes and mandatory climate education. 

“A lot of us at NHCM noticed that over COVID, when the state CT transit made buses free for a long time, that ridership dramatically increased,” Lee said. “So that’s one of the things we want to push for — free bus passes, along with a lot of the other things that New Haven can help with, in terms of, pushing for better routes, or … bus rapid transit systems within the city.”

NHCM’s resolution has garnered support from over 20 different organizations, including Sierra Club of Connecticut, Yale Student Environmental Coalition and New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation. Yale’s first-year FOCUS orientation program has previously partnered with NHCM to raise awareness of environmental issues. Sarkar hopes for more institutional collaboration between Yale and NHCM.

Sarkar told the News that the resolution takes into account feedback on its financial feasibility and long-term logistics. 

“I’m happy to see residents advocating for sustainability and action to address climate change,” Ward 1 Alder Kiana Flores ’25 said. “A large portion of CT’s carbon emissions are attributed to the transportation sector, making this topic important to address at the local level.”

Despite Flores’s support of NHCM’s efforts to address the problem, no alder has publicly supported this resolution.

For Sarkar, the issue of transportation and the environment began when she saw how the government could actively shape environmental conscience. The reality of climate change became more pertinent as exemplified by the recent Hurricane Milton, she said. 

“This is an issue I got involved in because I realized that I am not the only one being impacted, but rather global communities are subject to ecological instability in the modern world,” Sarkar said.

The City’s Climate and Sustainability Framework aims for a 55 percent reduction of 2001 emissions rates by 2030.