Concerned after she saw an accident two weeks ago very close to a bus stop on Parade Hill Road, a New Canaan woman is asking town officials to consider repainting the road at its eastern intersection with Rural Drive.
Mary Maechling, a mother of three young boys, told officials with the Traffic Calming Work Group at their June 25 meeting that a “choker affect’ could be created by painting a curb white or with reflective paint so that motorists—especially those traveling southbound—pay more attention to a curve in the road and slow down instead of crossing momentarily into an oncoming traffic lane in order to maintain their speed.
“People are coming fast on Parade Hill Road, up and down, they speed up speed and it’s a straight shot up the hill,” Maechling said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.
“Because of the natural curve of the road, it forces southbound cars to really cross over a line, but there is no line there because of the intersection,” Maechline told the group, which includes members of the police, fire, public works and emergency management departments. “So when cars are coming southbound they naturally go over the center line because they think it’s the road, then they correct themselves. So I’m wondering can we paint the curb or introduce a dotted line? I imagine it would slow them down because of the way the curb is. In short, can we use the natural contour of the road, and paint, to create a choker effect?”
Her comments came about one week after a car accident before 8 a.m. on Wednesday, June 17, when a motorist pulling left out of Rural Drive onto Parade Hill hit a large truck that was traveling “up the hill” toward Oenoke Ridge Road/Route 124.
Though no one was seriously hurt in the collision, it happened right near a bus stop and was “very upsetting to everyone on the scene,” Maechling said.
Residents of Parade Hill Road, as well as nearby Siwanoy Lane, Rural Drive and Riverbank Court, all have tried for years to figure out ways to slow down motorists on the narrow street—a cut through-for many commercial vehicles traveling between state Routes 123 and 124.
Last spring, 33 residents of the area signed a petition to urge officials to find a way to slow down motorists. Proposals such as speed bumps, stop signs, designated “no-thru truck” zones, pedestrian crosswalks and additional signage all have been rejected as impractical or unsafe.
Officials did put additional speed sentries along the road one year ago, and selectively enforced the speed limit there for a time in order to slow down motorists.
Police Capt. John DiFederico told Maechling at the meeting that the town would continue to do everything in its power to slow down motorists, though there is no significant traffic accident history there. DiFederico thanked Maechling for her idea, which is cost-effective and feasible.
Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works, said he would visit the intersection to determine whether curb painting or some other type of striping would make sense.
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Town officials will ask the state to put up a speed limit sign for eastbound traffic on East Avenue traveling between Cherry Street and Route 123, following a request from a resident to do so.
Motorists often speed along East Avenue as they pass Summer Street and head down the hill past the doctors’ offices, traffic officials say.
Since that stretch of East Avenue is Route 106, a state road, permission is needed from the Connecticut Department of Transportation in order to install the same 25 mph speed limit sign that westbound motorists have, according to Tiger Mann, the assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works and member of the Traffic Calming Work Group.
Officials also will look into whether they can install a crosswalk on East Avenue in the area of Summer Street, as per a resident’s request.
Mann said that since there already is a crosswalk in the area of Hoyt Street, he’d ask the state whether that also is possible.
“They may so no because it’s so close,” Mann said at the June 25 meeting of the work group, an administrative team that fields requests for traffic calming in New Canaan.
Regarding the proposed crosswalk, he added: “On one side of Summer, the southern side, the sightlines are not as good as the other side.”