Saying motorists take Forest Street “like it’s Indianapolis,” a New Canaan resident is calling on town officials to re-jigger parking so that cars pulling out of driveways there can safely enter the roadway.
Looking south on Forest Street toward the intersection at Locust Avenue. As it is now, cars are allowed to park up to the sign that’s visible over the top of the red car pictured—right up to the last driveway on Forest. One resident is calling for the town to pull the allowable parking back so that motorists seeking to exit their driveways along the west side of Forest may do so safely, without risking a collision with cars speeding down Forest. Credit: Michael Dinan
On-street parking on Forest currently is allowed to about number 54—the last residence on the west side of the street before the vacant Bank of America building, as zipping motorists travel south, Chris Hussey told the Police Commission at the group’s most recent meeting.
When those parked cars are SUVs, “if you are coming out of that driveway—and there are two driveways, three buildings with four families in them—you cannot see,” Hussey said at the group’s May 20 meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.
“It is a blind spot, and you are coming out and you are the driver and they are they are coming down Forest Street like it’s Indianapolis, and by time you get out, they are there on top of you. And what I had suggested and hoped they would do at some point was to push the parking back, maybe not even not quite to Hillside Avenue—because there’s a condo complex there on the right, Forest Knoll—but maybe to that driveway, just so you have an opportunity to come out and see who is there. Because you are really afraid to go out.”
Police Chief Leon Kroliowski said the matter would be referred to the Traffic Calming Work Group—an administrative team that fields such requests—and that the commission could take action based on its recommendation.
Hussey said she would like the town to be proactive and “preventative.”
“I don’t want to wait until somebody gets hurt or killed and then change it,” she said.
She compared the Forest Street residents’ difficulty in pulling out to the situation at Burtis Avenue, where motorists seeking to make a left onto Cherry Street “better say a Hail Mary or whatever you say.”
As on Forest, Hussey suggested the commission look into removing parking spaces near the intersection in order to provide a better sightline to motorists pulling out.
“You know what? I would rather lose a parking space than lose a life or have somebody crippled,” she said. “Or a child hurt, because no one drives slowly.”
Commissioner Sperry DeCew said that some types of SUVs are so oversized that “any place they park, they can block your sight.”
“I don’t know how you get around that,” DeCew said.
Hussey suggested the commission mark some spaces as ‘No SUVs.’
“They [Motorists entering the roadway] cannot see who is coming, so they take a chance,” Hussey said.
Also coming out of weed and duryea and pet pantry lot. The cars parked to the north on the west side of grove street create a terrible blind spot