Government
Town Officials Appropriate $13,650 for Traffic Study in Advance of Locust Avenue Parking Deck Construction
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Town officials on Tuesday appropriated funds for a traffic study that’s expected to kickstart in earnest the creation of a widely anticipated parking deck at the Locust Avenue Lot. On a backburner for more than two years during the renovation and expansion of Town Hall, plans call for a parking tier accessible from Heritage Hill Road with a non-connected lower level that feeds onto Locust Avenue—a project that would add 89 overall spaces to the lot. There would be no connecting ramp between the two levels—installing one would cost the structure about 20 spaces—and the upper deck would meet a need for permitted parking for town employees and commuters, with the lower level serving downtown visitors, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. The $13,650 appropriated this week—to Cheshire-based consulting firm Milone & MacBroom—will pay for an updated traffic study, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said during the Board of Selectmen’s meeting, held at Town Hall. “One of the things we had heard was that the traffic study we had done in 2005-2006 was done at a certain time of the year” that did not capture downtown New Canaan during a realistically active time, Mallozzi said.