Town officials may install a “right turn only” sign or otherwise try to improve a dangerous intersection some downtown motorists face every day.
It’s difficult to know just what to do, or when to do it, when exiting the Red Cross building’s parking lot on Main Street. Town officials are working on a solution, now that municipal employees are parking there. Credit: Michael Dinan
Drivers trying to pull out of the driveway of the Red Cross building at 51 Main St.—now leased by the town for municipal employee parking—face difficult decisions about just when and where it’s safe to turn onto Main or drive straight across onto Heritage Hill Road, officials said Tuesday.
That’s because, as of now, there’s no traffic signal instructing those motorists when it’s safe to exit the driveway, and no way for them to know who has a green light coming from one of the four other directions that cars approach the busy intersection by the thrift shop.
“We need something there,” Selectman Nick Williams said at the Board of Selectmen meeting, held in Town Hall.
Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works, said he suggests motorists turn right out of the driveway, because it’s the easiest safe turn to make, and for those who need to drive back up toward God’s Acre, to circle back around where it’s convenient.
“You’re not affiliated with any stoplight at that point,” Mann said.
Williams said that “it can be really scary” the first time a driver comes to the end of the driveway and tries to figure out what to do.
First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said that, in the past, an all-pedestrian crossing signal would phase in automatically at the intersection, every four cycles.
“That gave us the opportunity to leave that parking lot pretty much unencumbered in every direction, you just timed it with the phase,” Mallozzi said. “Now that it will be a push-button phase, which is the right way to go, we won’t have that luxury.”
Mallozzi said to Williams: “I think your point is well-taken.”
Mann said the Traffic Calming Work Group would take up the matter.