Town Center Traffic Improvements Slated For Discussion

By Andrew Gorosko

In response to continuing public interest in how traffic problems in the town center can be best managed, the Police Commission plans to have the traffic consulting firm that has studied those problems explain its many recommendations at an upcoming session.

Police Commission members on May 1 decided to have Vollmer Associates, LLP, of Hamden explain the many aspects of its Queen Street Area Traffic Improvement Plan. The draft document recommends making about 40 physical changes in the town center to better manage traffic flow during the coming 20 years. The Police Commission is the local traffic authority.

The session is slated for 7:30 pm on Tuesday, June 5. The tentative location for the meeting is the town office complex at 31 Peck’s Lane.

In its 29-page traffic plan, the consultants investigated traffic problems on Queen Street, Glover Avenue, Church Hill Road (Route 6), Main Street (Route 25), Mile Hill Road (Route 860), and Commerce Road.

In April, the Police Commission endorsed a Vollmer proposal to install three speed bumps on the southern section of Queen Street to reduce vehicle speeds there, but opposed another Vollmer  proposal to reconfigure the Main Street flagpole intersection.

Vollmer proposes the flagpole intersection modifications as a safety measure and as a way to improve general traffic flow in the town center. Installing a set of traffic signals and reconfiguring traffic flow would improve the movement of traffic and pedestrians at the flagpole, according to Vollmer. Entry to the intersection is now controlled by stop signs posted on Church Hill Road and on West Street.

Last December, the Borough Board of Burgesses opposed altering the Main Street flagpole intersection.

Police Chief Michael Kehoe said he recently met with First Selectman Herb Rosenthal to discuss the overall town center traffic improvement plan.

Chief Kehoe urged that the Police Commission meet with Vollmer representatives at a public session to discuss the traffic plan. A Borough Board of Burgesses session last December at which Vollmer presented its traffic plan attracted about 80 residents.

Police Commission member Richard Simon said, “I’d like to have the [traffic plan] presentation. It’s a great idea. I look forward to it.”

Resident Jill Beaudry of 36 Queen Street urged that Police Commission members support the viewpoint of Queen Street residents who are concerned about traffic problems in their neighborhood.

Since 2001, Queen Street area residents often have attended Police Commission meetings in seeking to resolve their concerns about the volume, speed, and noise of traffic along that congested road. The Queen Street Area Traffic Improvement Plan stemmed from those residents’ interest in improving traffic conditions along that street.

Resident Bruce Walczak of 12 Glover Avenue urged that sidewalks be installed along Queen Street, saying that doing so would improve pedestrian safety in the area. “I think it’s a fabulous idea,” he said.

Police Commission Chairman Carol Mattegat said that while the commission can request that sidewalks be installed along Queen Street, it has no legal authority to install such sidewalks.

After a future review of the town center traffic improvement plan, the Board of Selectmen is expected to set traffic improvement priorities and then seek grant funding to cover some costs for those improvements. Funding would come from local, state, federal, and private sources. More than half of the required construction money may be available from state and federal sources.

Excluding the consultants’ proposed extension of Commerce Road to Wasserman Way to create a local north-south connector road, the estimated cost of the consultants’ proposed traffic improvements is $1.89 million based on 2006 cost information.

In other traffic-related business at the May 1 Police Commission session, commission members rescinded their April 3 endorsement of a resident’s request to create a painted sidewalk across Glover Avenue, near its intersection with Meadow Road, to improve pedestrian safety for area students walking to and from the nearby Newtown Middle School.

Commission members said that they had not been aware that a school bus makes stops near that intersection to provide middle school students living in that area with school transportation.