Town officials last week approved funds for two push button-activated pedestrian crossing beacons, to be installed at crosswalks on state roads in New Canaan.
The “rapid rectangular flashing beacons” or “RRFBs”—already in place at several locations in New Canaan, including Main and Farm Roads, Weed and Elm Streets, and Wahackme Road and Weed Street—will be installed at the South Avenue crosswalk near the YMCA and the Old Stamford Road crosswalk at Gower Road, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. After pedestrians push a button on either side of a crosswalk, the signs on both sides begin flashing, indicating to motorists that there’s someone walking in the road.
“We were finally able to work through the state plan that they need an actual traffic signal plan for it to be installed, and we were be able to get that design completed,” Mann told the selectmen at their June 7 meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. “And our encroachment permit, our permit to actually perform the work, is with the DOT [Connecticut Department of Transportation] and we feel it should be coming forward within the next week or two.”
First Selectmen Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the $21,950 contract with Bethel-based East Coast Sign & Supply Inc.
The selectmen asked whether the RRFBs work through solar power (yes, and wireless signals) and whether they work (yes, they have a 92% adherence rate after one year).
Williams asked how many more such RRFBs are planned for the town.
Mann said there’s one planned for the New Canaan Nature Center entrance’s planned crossing to a sidewalk on the opposite side of Oenoke Ridge, as well as one at the northernmost end of Park Street where it meets Oenoke Ridge near the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.