Seeking to reduce motorists’ speeds and improve sight lines near an intersection that’s at the center of a longstanding dispute between neighbors, officials plan to re-stripe and otherwise improve parts of East Maple and Main Streets.
A panoramic view of East Maple (L) and Main Streets (R) on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016. Credit: Michael Dinan
Plans call for the removal of two parking spaces—one up to the northwestern corner of East Maple, the other around the corner on Main (in front of Coldwell Banker)—as well as the westward shifting of the centerline on Main Street as northbound traffic approaches the intersection and shifting forward both the stop bar and crosswalk at the top of East Maple, traffic officials said.
Tiger Mann, ascending assistant director of the Department of Public Works, told members of the Police Commission at their most recent meeting that he has “a request for Safety Markings to come out and take care of that work.”
“Once we put that striping in, we will move over the centerline,” he said at the meeting, held Nov. 16 in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department. “That’s all we have left—to come and lay it out as to what’s going to happen, and then give the go-ahead and do the work.”
The improvements represent an initial attempt to create a safer intersection for motorists seeking to exit Maple and East Maple onto Main and for pedestrians seeking to cross those streets. Northbound motorists on Main rarely look for cars pulling out just there—they’re focused on the light at Cherry up ahead, officials say—and pedestrians using the crosswalks often are walking into unsuspecting traffic.
Exacerbating already bad sight lines, residents of East Maple Street say, are motor vehicles parked by AC Auto Body in the northwestern-most corner of the business’s lot—an area that had been a grass verge and was paved over in recent months.
AC Auto Body owner Anthony Ceraso has said he needed to pave over that area to create more parking on his lot, after commissioners withdrew a special allowance whereby the business—which is the emergency towing service for the town—could park vehicles on East Maple Street. The Police Commission urged Ceraso to use designated space up at the Center School lot rather than park on East Maple, following concerns from neighbors that his trucks and customer vehicles were pinching traffic on their road, creating a safety hazard.
The new changes result from a traffic study commissioned by the town and officials hope they’ll ease tensions that have escalated between Ceraso and several neighbors after the latter brought the situation to the town’s attention last winter.
Other possible solutions include reducing northbound traffic on Main by “bumping out” the southeast corner at East Maple Street, effectively narrowing the road there. Public works officials have said they would prefer not to do that, because snow plows would run straight into the bump-out in the winter. Commissioners also have said a bump-out would make it difficult for drivers pulling out of the AC Auto Body lot to accelerate onto Main Street. Officials also have talked about making East Maple one way running from Main to Hoyt Street—a prospect that some Hoyt Street residents have opposed.
At the last Police Commission meeting that Ceraso attended, some neighbors indicated that he should not be allowed to park cars up against the street because his property is in the B Residential Zone, which requires a 25-foot setback for accessory structures. It isn’t clear whether a parked car qualifies as such, and Ceraso has said that he has engaged a lawyer for advice on the matter.
The Police Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday.