A dangerous intersection at Cricket and Narragansett Trail in Sandy Hook will finally be receiving stop signs on both sides of Cricket, and the Police Commission intends to continue its review on non-standard public roadways over the next few months.

Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Fred Hurley attended the March 1 Police Commission meeting and said that “the issue with Cricket and Narragansett is the tip of the iceberg” with roads that were once private roads.

“This is a much bigger problem than Cricket and Narragansett,” he said.

Hurley said that under Connecticut Common Law, if roads are not isolated from entry at least one day per year, they are no longer considered to be private roads. Only two roads in Newtown have continued to rope off access once per year; the rest have become what the DPW refers to as “non-standard public roadways,” which are roads the town is responsible for maintaining but often do not meet the standards of town roadways and were not legally accepted as town roads by the town.

While there is no unified policy to “recognize the reality of what these roads are,” and they don’t meet town road standards, they are now public roadways, he further explained Tuesday night.

“This has created an issue for us,” Hurley said. “With a town road, standards have to be met. For [non-standard public roadways], we have to work on these roads, and we have to keep them passable for emergency vehicles. That’s our responsibility.”

Hurley said “it might be time” for the town to “take a look at formerly private roads and to what extent we should put on traffic controls.”

For many of these roads, not only has the town been plowing them, but the town has also been paving them and adding drainage to “guarantee emergency access.”

Police Commission Chairman Joel Faxon said the town is obligated to maintain those roads or it could face legal liability under state statutes. Faxon said that if the town is obligated to maintain the roads by plowing and paving them, by extension the town also must have the obligation to ensure the roads are safe, and that means putting up traffic control signs.

“Even though these are not designated as official roads, we have the obligation to make sure there are sufficient signs to keep the road in repair and safe,” said Faxon.

Police Commissioner Scott Cicciari suggested a phased approach to the problem, looking at the “problem in front” of them — the four-way Cricket and Narragansett intersection — at that meeting, and then addressing other areas, possibly broken into different sections of town, at future meetings.

Cicciari said a review was important to see how much of a cost to the town adding all those signs would be.

Hurley said a review by the traffic division of non-standard public roadways could take two to three months, or possibly more.

“We’re talking evaluating a lot of intersections; I think this will be a longer term project,” said Hurley.

Police Commissioner Neil Chaudhary was concerned the town may need a legal opinion on putting signs on non-standard public roadways, but Hurley said the town already had legal opinions on the matter and he would make them available to the commission at a future meeting.

Police Chief David Kullgren noted the town has a precedent with signage on private property, as places such as the Big Y plaza have traffic control lights and stop signs.

For Cricket and Narragansett, the intersection already has a stop sign but the town has no record of its installation. Resident Marc Michaud, speaking during public participation, said a neighbor installed the stop sign themselves following an accident. The sign, he said, had possibly been stolen from somewhere else.

Kullgren said any stop sign in town needs to be approved by both the town’s traffic authority, which is the Police Commission, as well as by the state, to be a legal, enforceable stop sign.

Michaud had been requesting the intersection of Cricket and Narragansett be made a four-way stop, as the road was often treated as a “racetrack” by motorists passing through the area. Commissioners did not believe there was enough traffic on Narragansett to justify a four-way stop, however, and approved only stop signs on each side of Cricket Trail.

Hurley said he would report back to the commission concerning the review of the non-standard public roadways at a future meeting.

Reporter Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.