The dust hasn't settled yet on New London's redesigned Parade, but from what we can see so far it's a vast improvement.

I've heard some grumblings of complaint, that walking on the new brick sidewalks is a challenge in heels, for instance, and that Nathan Hale's relocated schoolhouse will be consumed by the new concrete parking garage elevator tower being built next to it.

But I think most people are impressed with the way the project has restored this inspiring big space in the core of the downtown. It's especially beautiful at night, with the handsome red brick façade of Union Station all lit up.

And yet now that the roadwork portion of the $10 million project is finished, I have to wonder: What happened to the promised traffic calming? Wasn't pedestrian safety supposed to be the first priority of the project?

It's true that the crosswalks are easier to see. Not only are they marked with fresh white lines, but they are made from a different kind of paving material than the road, so they're a different color.

Orange traffic signs on each side alert motorists to the presence of a crosswalk. And sometime soon they will even light up at night with buried spots, sort of like an airport runway.

And yet there seems to be nothing to prevent cars from rolling over them as fast as ever.

I spent some time over the Memorial Day weekend, while construction was halted, watching traffic pass through the new Parade route out of town, making the sharp right turn off the end of Bank Street and rolling down to the straightaway that starts in front of the station. That's when the drivers start to accelerate, as they always have.

I don't see any difference at all in the general configuration of the road or anything in the new design that would make people drive more slowly. Instead, the removal of the berm across from the station and the improved sight lines seem to have empowered drivers with the idea that, since they can see farther ahead, they can start to speed up sooner.

As for the pedestrians, the better sight lines only help you see from a greater distance the cars that are going to run you down if you attempt to cross.

The architects for the project ridiculed the old Parade as an "outdated" urban design that favored cars over walkers. They hailed their own plan as an example of a new "pedestrianism" that promotes walkable cities.

Traffic would be calmed in the new Parade, they promised, with techniques such as rumble strips built into pavement so that the area would no longer be a speedway out of town.

It's true that the new road is made of attractive pavers instead of asphalt, but if anything, it's smoother and more suited to higher speeds than the old road, with its ruts and potholes.

Perhaps they plan to add those plastic fluorescent yellow placards inside the crosswalks, warning that traffic must stop for pedestrians. They've been installed on Eugene O'Neill Drive for a while now, and they seem to have succeeded in slowing down traffic as it enters the city.

Of course they didn't need to spend $10 million to put those in.

This is the opinion of David Collins.