The deployment of utility crews to repair extensive damage in southwestern Connecticut caused by a mid-May windstorm has delayed completion of a state Department of Transportation (DOT) project to relocate the intersection of South Main Street and northern Pecks Lane.

Moving utility poles and suspended utility lines is a key part of the project to relocate that intersection about 250 feet to the south to improve travel safety in an area that has a high accident rate.

From 2013 through 2015, there were ten motor vehicle accidents at the intersection, of which seven involved rear-end collisions, mostly due to motorists following one another too closely on South Main Street, according to DOT.

Many overhead utility line workers gathered on Monday, August 20, at the intersection, in preparation for moving utility lines.

In late May, workers closed the northern end of Pecks Lane to through-traffic to allow the project to proceed. Barricades with signs stating that through-traffic closure are positioned on both ends of the affected road section, which is about 400 feet long.

Peck Lane’s southern intersection with South Main Street, which lies about 4,800 feet to the south, remains open to traffic during the project.

During the partial closure of northern Pecks Lane, local traffic seeking access to properties with frontage there may do so via Pecks Lane’s southern intersection with South Main Street. South Main Street will retain traffic flow in the area during the project.

Schultz Construction, which bid $969,930 for the project, is doing the intersection project for the DOT. The project had been scheduled for completion by early November.

“We are currently evaluating a time extension (for project completion) due to utility delays related to the tornado/high winds in May, which caused extensive damage in the southwestern part of the state. This delayed Eversource Energy and Frontier (Communications), as their crews had to respond to the emergency work,” DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said this week.

Mr Nursick did not have a new estimated completion date. “We are hopeful to finish up this year, but due to paving, it could extend into the spring, depending upon weather,” he said. Asphalt plants, which provide materials for paving, typically close for business late in the year.

Intersection sight line distances are being improved at the intersection of Cedar Hill Road and South Main Street by removing a stone wall. An embankment near that wall also is being cut back to improve the view.

The project is intended to simplify a confusing multi-road junction, improve traffic flow, and reduce motor vehicle accidents. The long junction in a commercial/residential area is where South Main Street, northern Pecks Lane, Prospect Drive, and Cedar Hill Road meet.

In its new configuration, both sides of Pecks Lane will be flared to provide sufficient space for vehicle-turning motions where Pecks Lane and South Main Street meet.

The improvement project affects an about a 775-foot-long section of South Main Street. The project will include extending an existing southbound bypass lane on South Main Street southward from South Main Street’s intersection with Cedar Hill Road to the new intersection of South Main Street and Pecks Lane.

Such an extended bypass lane will provide sufficient space for southbound motorists to pass, on the right, other southbound motorists who are waiting to make left turns either onto Prospect Drive or onto Pecks Lane at its planned new intersection.

The project will include the installation of new stormwater drainage structures and a new water line. The intersection improvement project has been in the planning stages since 1996.