News

Town Installs ‘Stop Ahead’ Sign for Northbound Motorists on Weed Street Approaching Frogtown

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Responding to concerns from a resident who lives near the intersection, traffic officials have installed a ‘Stop Ahead’ sign for motorists traveling north on Weed Street as they approach Frogtown Road. Members of the Police Commission at a recent meeting also voted 3-0 to place reflectors on the sign itself, part of a 3-way stop that often takes drivers by surprise. “People coming up from the Merritt Parkway up to visit people here, they don’t realize that there’s a stop sign in the middle of that road,” commissioner Paul Foley said at the group’s Nov. 16 meeting, held in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department. According to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski, there’s no significant accident history at the intersection.

Government

Town To Reduce Speed Limits on Four Roads from 30 to 25 MPH

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Members of the volunteer group that oversees traffic in New Canaan are seeking to reduce from 30 to 25 mph the speed limits on four remaining roads in town where it makes sense to do so. Following the most recent meeting of the Police Commission, officials will ask permission from the state to reduce the speed limit on Silvermine Road to 25 mph—something residents of the area long have wanted—and then will take up the same change on Weed Street north of Elm Street, Wahackme Road and Old Norwalk Road near Route 123. Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works, told members of the Police Commission at their Nov. 16 meeting that he would recommend the change “for uniformity’s sake alone, since we only have four roads left [at 30 mph], to take each one to the state and get to 25 mph across the board.”

Commissioners voted 3-0 in favor of the change. After a formal letter requesting the reduced speed limits from Police Chief Leon Krolikowski goes to the state and receives approval, it would be up to four weeks for the state make its decision and then just a few days to swap out signage, Mann said at the meeting, held in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department.

Government

‘A Pattern of Abuse’: Police Commission To Remove Auto Shop’s Designated Parking Space on East Maple Street

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The volunteers who oversee on-street parking in New Canaan voted last week to spend $1,700 for a field analysis and sight line study of East Maple Street, an increasingly busy commercial area downtown whose residents say they’re concerned about traffic and safety. At its regular meeting Wednesday, the Police Commission also decided to discontinue a practice whereby an auto body shop on the corner at Main Street is allowed to park on East Maple. Instead, the commissioners said, AC Auto Body will use two designated spaces in the nearby Center School parking lot for its flatbed trucks and could park a smaller wrecker in its own lot. East Maple Street resident David Shea, who has become a spokesperson for the concerned neighbors, told the commission at its July 20 meeting that “what we are looking at is two kinds of streets when you come up East Maple from Hoyt it is a wide street.”

“As you turn in the curb toward Main it becomes a bottleneck, it narrows down,” Shea said at the meeting, held in the New Canaan Police Department’s training room. “What we are proposing is that parking only be on the right-hand side of the street, the usual two hours, and then on the right-hand side going east, that would be no-parking, no-standing [zone] that will allow traffic to pass on a two-way basis and give the residents the parking that they need.

Around Town

‘New Canaan At Its Best’: Town Council Thanks Volunteers Who Run Family Fourth at Waveny

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New Canaan’s legislative body on Wednesday recognized a group of residents who volunteer each year to plan and run one of the town’s most beloved annual traditions, the Fourth of July fireworks at Waveny. The Family Fourth Committee through its many hours of volunteering creates what Town Council Vice Chairman Steve Karl called “a Norman Rockwell moment” for those who picnic and enjoy the fireworks show each summer. “It’s one of those places and times when it’s New Canaan at its best,” Karl said during the Town Council’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “Thank you.”

The committee includes:

Steve Benko
Scott Cluett
Chris Cody
Wendy Dixon Fog
Win Goodrich
Suzanne Jonker
Vincent Luciano
Steve Parrett (Secretary)
Tom Stadler (Chairman)
John DiFederico
Rob Mallozzi (honorary member)
Doug Richardson (liaison from the Park & Recreation Commission)

At councilman Penny Young’s suggestion, the committee earned a standing ovation from the legislative body and others gathered in the Town Meeting Room. Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert said nothing better defines New Canaan “than the celebration that we put on for our country’s birthday.”

“There are a lot of things that speak to it, one of which is the fact that we depend on our citizens to support it, it is run by our citizens we have countless volunteers that work everything from traffic to balloons to you name it.”

Walbert noted that Stadler “lives and breathes” the Family Fourth as the committee’s chairman and “is always looking to make it better.”

Committee member Steve Benko recalled that the Family Fourth was launched in 1979 when the chairman of Park & Rec at the time, Joe Toppin, brought the idea to then-First Selectman Charlie Morton about creating a regular event out of a Bicentennial celebration at Waveny a few years earlier, complete with a picnic, fireworks and skydivers.

News

Facing Traffic and Safety Concerns, Town Considers Making East Maple Street One-Way

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Facing safety concerns on a short, busy road downtown that’s often pinched by commercial traffic, officials said Thursday that they will seek a traffic study to help determine whether East Maple Street should flow one-way. A bustling commercial hub with the New Canaan Cleaners served by a small lot and several on-street parkers, the L-shaped road includes more than one dozen residences and presents sightline problems for motorists seeking to exit East Maple onto Main Street, residents have told traffic officials with the town. The town body that fields traffic-calming requests in New Canaan—a work group that includes fire, police, public works and emergency management officials—“have determined that making it one-way is a viable option and may solve a lot of the problems there,” Police Capt. John DiFederico said Thursday at a regular meeting of the Police Commission. Tiger Mann, a Traffic Calming Work Group member who serves as assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works, recommended this week that the town seek the study from Fairfield-based Frederick P. Clark Associates, with an eye on wrapping it up by midsummer. Police commissioner Paul Foley said: “We are all on the same page that there is a problem and [we want to] solve it and listen to residents.”

Sending traffic one-way down East Maple toward Hoyt Street would preempt the difficulties facing motorists who want to turn onto Main Street, though additional parking problems exist, DiFederico said.