At their meeting on Tuesday, January 5, Police Commission members are scheduled to discuss a traffic report on the Main Street flagpole intersection, the location which has the second-highest motor vehicle accident rate in town.

The session is scheduled for 6:30 pm, in the lower level conference at Town Hall South, 3 Main Street.

The Police Commission, which is the local traffic authority, recently hired Frederick P. Clark Associates of Fairfield to conduct the traffic study for $17,900. Traffic engineer Michael Galante of the firm is slated to make a presentation on the traffic study’s findings to commission members.

The study is intended to identify specific traffic problems and suggest possible public safety solutions for the flagpole intersection.

The five-legged intersection of Main Street (US Route 6/State Route 25), Church Hill Road (US Route 6), and West Street has a 100-foot-tall flagpole as its centerpiece. The flagpole, which is not shielded by barriers, effectively serves as the hub of a traffic rotary. Access to the intersection is controlled by stop signs on Church Hill Road and West Street.

From 2012 through 2014, there were 55 collisions at the intersection, according to police. A majority of those accidents involved vehicles colliding with one another, and the other collisions involved vehicles driving into the steel flagpole.

On November 22, a motorist driving a Subaru Impreza, who was southbound on Main Street, attempted to make a left turn onto eastbound Church Hill Road and in doing so, the motorist struck a 13-year-old boy who was jogging with two other people on the crosswalk on Church Hill Road there. The youth was transported to the hospital for treatment of injuries. The motorist received an infraction for failure to grant the right of way to a pedestrian at a crosswalk.

Making any changes at the flagpole intersection is complicated by the fact that Main Street and Church Hill Road are both state roads and are under state Department of Transportation control. Also, the flagpole is a state-designated landmark.

The flagpole intersection has been the subject of past traffic studies.