Government

Traffic Officials Respond to Church Street Residents’ Call To Eliminate New Double-Yellow Centerline

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Voicing frustration at times during a meeting with traffic officials Tuesday, residents of Church Street agreed to wait until next year to find out whether a double-yellow line recently painted down the center of their road could be nixed from future post-paving plans. Since a new centerline appeared on Church Street last month, residents have said it’s speeding up motor vehicle traffic and is out of character with their neighborhood. 

Andy Towers told members of the Traffic Calming Work Group during a special meeting that local Realtors also have been unanimous in their feedback that “living on double-yellow line road is less desirable for people and their families than one that is not.”

“Certainly we are all concerned with kids and the pets and everybody and I understand and respect that you guys have a job to do,” Towers said at the meeting, held in the New Canaan Police Department’s training room. 

“The reality is this attacks our bottom line if the perception from the people that are in the business is that people don’t want to or are less apt to buy houses on streets with a double-yellow line and all of our net stakes are connected to that, I would think there would be recourse for our group to address that. It just seems as though, what is the difference between throwing down two yellow lines in the middle of the road and saying you owe us $200,000, you owe us 6 percent or 5 percent or whatever the numbers are? You are hacking into the value of our property. There is no question about it.

Government

Police Field Complaint About Motorists Holding Up Traffic To Pull into Starbucks Lot

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Police have fielded a complaint about motorists who create traffic tie-ups downtown while traveling south on Park Street and then turning left, across the oncoming traffic lane, to the bustling Starbucks parking lot. 

According to the complaint, discussed by the Traffic Calming Work Group at its most recent meeting, the offending motorists often sit in the roadway before they can turn, holding up traffic and “causing other drivers to sit through two long traffic signals.”

That is “inconvenient for many citizens headed to the train station for work, to town for work or to other appointments,” according to the complainant. 

The complainant recommended installing a ‘No left turn’ sign to head off the problem, according to the letter, sent to Police Capt. John DiFederico, who sits on the Work Group along with public works, parking, fire and emergency management officials. The problem “does not really happen that often,” DiFederico said at their most recent meeting, held Sept. 18 at the New Canaan Police Department. “I don’t think many people pull that way in and if you have to sit through two cycles of a traffic light, it’s not the end of the world. But I don’t see that many people wanting to go into Starbucks that way, because it’s such a hassle.

Government

Police Commission Approves Four Flashing Pedestrian Safety Signs for Bus Stops, Crosswalks

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Town officials last week approved a proposal to install two pedestrian-activated flashing beacons at regularly used crosswalks that motorists tend to approach at speed, as well as flashing signs warning drivers of school bus stops at two locations in New Canaan. The “rapid reflective flashing beacons”—similar to the one already in place at Weed and Elm Streets—are to be installed at Kimberly Place and Elm Street and at the intersection of Old Kings Highway and Old Norwalk Road, where a crosswalk went in three years ago. Police Capt. John DiFederico told members of the Police Commission at their regular meeting that the department has received “numerous complaints from people coming out of the Kimberly [Place]-Seminary [Street] area that they they do not feel safe to cross there.”

And the relatively new crosswalk that connects Old Kings Highway to a trail that skirts Kiwanis Park and hooks up to a sidewalk that runs to Main Street downtown as well as Farm Road up to the schools “is getting a lot of use,” DiFederico said at the Sept. 18 meeting, held at New Canaan Police headquarters. Ultimately, Commission Chairman Sperry DeCew, Paul Foley and Jim McLaughlin voted 3-0 to recommend the installations. 

The solar-powered flashing beacons warning motorists of a ‘bus stop ahead’ will be installed on Wahackme Road, replacing one that had worked effectively in the past, as well as at a particularly dangerous area on Frogtown Road. 

DeFederico said the Frogtown Road school bus stop, located at the bottom of a curve and hill coming off of Weed Street, near a cemetery, appears to serve a private school in New Canaan.

Government

Police Commission Votes 3-0 To Push Canoe Hill Traffic Island into Laurel

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Officials last week approved a plan to push a sometimes-ignored traffic island out of the roadway at Canoe Hill and Laurel Roads, addressing a traffic problem that’s been before the town for years. Signs posted on the small traffic island instruct motorists to stay to the right, and those coming from Laurel Road must yield, creating a rotary. Yet as it is, motorists traveling westbound on Canoe Hill face the non-intuitive prospect of going around the traffic island, which sweeps cars slightly to the right (toward Laurel) in order to continue on that road, which then jogs left. The road also feels wide enough to motorists on that approach that it should accommodate two-way traffic on the left-hand side of the island. By pushing the island into Laurel Road and installing a stop sign for Laurel traffic, officials hope to make Canoe Hill a true two-way street all the way through.

Around Town

Main Street Resident Lodges Traffic Complaint

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New Canaan Police received a complaint from a Cobbler’s Green resident regarding overcrowded parking on Main Street during services at the decades-old funeral home next door. During funerals at Hoyt Funeral Home, the resident said in an email to police, “park cars in such haphazard way that it is impossible for us to get out of the unit as we cannot see anything as cars blocks the view.”

“Today it is the same situation now,” the resident wrote in an Aug. 31 email sent to police through the MyPD app. “Also, on weekday evenings, [the] next door dance school parents park illegally on street and make it hazardous for us to drive. It is [a] disaster waiting to happen.