Government

Police Commission: Let’s Take a Second Look at Parking Changes That Cost Elm Street 13 Spaces

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Members of the Police Commission said Wednesday night that they’re willing to take a second look at a decision they made last summer to comply with a seldom-observed state law, leading to the elimination of 13 parking spaces on Elm Street. 

Prompted by a local attorney’s assertion that there appears to be a relevant 1950 opinion letter from the state attorney general and an appellate court case that could empower the town to find relief from the statute, commissioners said during their regular meeting that they would ask for a formal opinion from municipal counsel. New Canaan lost 13 spaces on Elm Street after a resident put town officials on formal notice about the town’s lack of compliance with a state law requiring a 25-foot buffer between crosswalks and parking spaces. Though local officials at the time asked transportation consultants and the state about what New Canaan might to do find a way out from under the restriction, no path to exemption materialized, and the Police Commission—the town’s on-street parking authority—voted 3-0 at its July 18 meeting to change Elm Street’s parking configuration. 

Merchants in the heart of New Canaan bemoaned the loss of parking. 

A guest at this week’s Commission meeting, Richard Stewart, said the change has upset him. Saying he’s seen a high number of vacant storefronts on Elm, Stewart told the Commission, “I know they are all under attack from Amazon and the Internet but in New Canaan that is such a vital thing for our town—we don’t have like Darien has a waterfront, we have the 100-acre cent er of town with the retail space and everybody comes in and it becomes a friendlier town.”

According to Stewart, an opinion issued by the Connecticut attorney general in 1950, one year after the statute in question took effect, could give municipalities the ability to pass an ordinance that allows them to get out from under the 25-foot rule. Stewart said he would investigate the option which while it “doesn’t have the power of law, still has power.”

He added that he found an appellate court case where a man fighting a $90 parking ticket was told by the court that he would have the ability to be exempted from the parking rule but that his city didn’t have an exemption on its own books, “so let’s make sure our town does that.”

Stewart said he would return at the Commission’s April 17 meeting with the information.

Charlein Megherby

‘I Just Don’t Think It Is Solving the Problem’: Concern That Sign at Nursery Road Is Creating Traffic Problems Elsewhere

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Back from spring break last week, Sarah Haddad watched from her Marvin Ridge Road driveway on three straight mornings as 12, 20 and 17 cars made U-turns there between 8 and 9 a.m.

She watched other motorists drive slowly and make U-turns in other people’s driveways, all so that they could turn right onto Nursery Road because, following recent decision by town officials, it’s no longer legal to make a left Nursery during the morning rush. “Not only do I really not like having my private driveway that I maintain, that I plow, that my children stand at the top of for their bus stops every morning, being used by people to turn around,” Haddad told members of the Police Commission during their Feb. 27 meeting. 

She added: “I just don’t think it is solving the problem. I think it is just going to still send people on Nursery. They know this route.

Anna Holbrook

Officials Approve Installation of ‘No Left Turn’ Signs on Nursery Road on Trial Basis

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Saying they feared the change could exacerbate safety concerns by pushing motor vehicle traffic near schools, town officials approved the installation of two temporary “no left turn” signs to ease congestion in a residential neighborhood during rush hour. Traffic on Nursery Road spikes to more than 300 vehicles between 8 and 9 a.m. on weekdays, officials have found—a result of New York City-bound motorists avoiding the congested Merritt Parkway. One proposed solution has been to prevent motorists traveling toward New Canaan along Marvin Ridge Road from turning left onto the top of Nursery Road in the mornings, as well as from turning left onto White Oak Shade Road from the bottom. 

Yet doing so likely would only push cut-through-seeking motorists deeper into New Canaan, including to Old Norwalk and Farm Roads, according to a traffic study from engineer Michael Galante of Frederick P. Clark Associates, a Fairfield-based planning consulting firm. Even so, members of the Police Commission during their Jan. 16 meeting approved the measure 3-0.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan Police said Wednesday that the department has fielded just two calls related to youth parties in 2018, down from nine in 2017. During a regular meeting of the Police Commission, Chief Leon Krolikowski also shared data that family dispute calls declined year-over-year from 62 to 54, and narcotics violations calls declined from 66 to 48, while fraud calls increased from 53 to 94 and identity theft increased from 25 to 55. ***

The town on Jan. 10 issued a building permit for the widely anticipated fifth platform tennis court at Waveny. More than one-third of the estimated $100,000 cost is to be paid for by private contributions raised among users of the facility.

Government

Police Commission Approves Four Flashing Pedestrian Safety Signs for Bus Stops, Crosswalks

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Town officials last week approved a proposal to install two pedestrian-activated flashing beacons at regularly used crosswalks that motorists tend to approach at speed, as well as flashing signs warning drivers of school bus stops at two locations in New Canaan. The “rapid reflective flashing beacons”—similar to the one already in place at Weed and Elm Streets—are to be installed at Kimberly Place and Elm Street and at the intersection of Old Kings Highway and Old Norwalk Road, where a crosswalk went in three years ago. Police Capt. John DiFederico told members of the Police Commission at their regular meeting that the department has received “numerous complaints from people coming out of the Kimberly [Place]-Seminary [Street] area that they they do not feel safe to cross there.”

And the relatively new crosswalk that connects Old Kings Highway to a trail that skirts Kiwanis Park and hooks up to a sidewalk that runs to Main Street downtown as well as Farm Road up to the schools “is getting a lot of use,” DiFederico said at the Sept. 18 meeting, held at New Canaan Police headquarters. Ultimately, Commission Chairman Sperry DeCew, Paul Foley and Jim McLaughlin voted 3-0 to recommend the installations. 

The solar-powered flashing beacons warning motorists of a ‘bus stop ahead’ will be installed on Wahackme Road, replacing one that had worked effectively in the past, as well as at a particularly dangerous area on Frogtown Road. 

DeFederico said the Frogtown Road school bus stop, located at the bottom of a curve and hill coming off of Weed Street, near a cemetery, appears to serve a private school in New Canaan.