News

State To Install Centerline ‘Rumble Strips’ on Upper Route 123

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Town officials last week approved a request from the state to install “rumble strips” along the northernmost 2.4-mile stretch of Route 123 in New Canaan. The Police Commission voted 3-0 in favor of the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s traffic safety measure at the appointed body’s May 18 meeting. The DOT recently finished a two-year study of rumble strips and “they found that 57% reduction in sideswipe crashes and off-the-road crashes,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “The criteria is a roadway that has 2,000 or more vehicles per day, speed limit of 35 mph or more, residential density very low, within 100 get of the roadway and the travel lane has to be at least 14 feet wide from centerline to edge of road,” Mann said at the Commission’s meeting, held at the New Canaan Police Department and via videoconference. “So they’re coming in to pave 123 this year, and it’s a perfect time to put in centerline rumble strips if we so choose,” he added. 

“We can either say yes or no, we just have to give them an answer,” Mann said.

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Police Triple ‘Location Checks’ in New Canaan

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New Canaan police officers through the first quarter of 2022 more than tripled their targeted checks of locations such as public parks and downtown areas as part of a wider effort to fight rising crime. The number of “location checks” increased from 167 the first three months of 2021 to 544 this year, Police Chief Leon Krolikowski told members of the Police Commission during their April 20 regular meeting. “The bulk of that increase is related to checking our parks and other locations,” Krolikowski said during the Commission’s meeting, held at New Canaan Police Department headquarters and via videoconference. 

“Intensive patrols to try and prevent people who are coming into town and committing crimes from doing that,” he said. “So that’s good work by our officers, certainly.”

Krolikowski said earlier this year that police have been “very concerned about” rises in crimes such as stolen vehicles and thefts from cars—including smash-and-grabs at public parks, where criminals wait for visitors to park their cars and leave for a walk—as well as residential burglaries and organized thefts from retail establishments. He noted at the Commission’s meeting that burglaries through the first three months of 2022 were up to four compared to zero for the year-ago period. 

“Our investigators are working on those cases and it’s a Fairfield County group that is committing the majority of those and we are hopeful at some point that we will be able to make some arrests and catch those people,” Krolikowski said.

News

Town Petitions State for Speed Limit Reduction on Route 123

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Town officials are petitioning the state to change the speed limit on Route 123 to 40 mph throughout its entire stretch in New Canaan. As it is now, the speed limit is 45 mph from New Norwalk Road to East Avenue, then 40 mph to Michigan Road and 45 mph from Michigan to the New York state line, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. Residents of upper 123 have asked Mann to request a reduction in the speed limit which at 45 mph “is a little bit excessive given the amount of traffic that is there,” he told members of the Police Commission at their April 20 meeting, held at the New Canaan Police Department and via videoconference. The request for a change in the speed limit on a state road such as 123 must come from the town’s designated “local traffic authority,” which is the Police Commission. Chair Paul Foley, Secretary Jim McLaughlin and member Shekaiba Bennett voted 3-0 in favor of the request for a reduction. 

Police Deputy Chief John DiFederico supported the request, saying the neighborhoods near 123 are often “densely populated.”

“It is radically inconsistent to go from 45 to 40 and 45,” DiFederico said.

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Town Approves Traffic-Calming Measures on Valley Road at Silver Hill

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Town officials have approve a series of traffic-calming measures on lower Valley Road designed to improve pedestrian safety in the area of a psychiatric hospital whose staff and patients cross the busy street to reach  different sections of its campus. The Police Commission at its March 16 meeting voted 3-0 in favor of installing a sign advising motorists to reduce their speed from 25 to 20 mph in the area of Silver Hill Hospital. At the request of New Canaan-based landscape architecture firm Keith Simpson Associates and with support from police and public works officials, the appointed body also approved moving “Hospital Zone” signs closer to the actual approaches to Silver Hill from both directions, putting in permanent speed sentries to notify motorists of their vehicles’ speeds, painting a single shoulder line along 1,800 feet of campus street frontage and installing pedestrian-activates rapid rectangular flashing beacons or “RRFBs” at two crosswalks there. “Valley Road is a busy road,” Simpson told the commissioners at the meeting, held via videoconference. 

Silver Hill is unique among institutions such as private schools that are set within residential zones in that it is bisected by a road, Simpson said, “which gives SH a unique challenge, really ,and in fact all of us who are interested in public safety.”

“WIth seven buildings on each side of the road there is significant pedestrian traffic in an area of town where, if people are driving along Valley Road who are not necessarily familiar with the fact that there was a campus there and Silver Hill was there and they felt they were just driving along another residential road with cars coming in and out of driveways, they would not expect to find major pedestrian cross-traffic,” Simpson said Simpson. He added that he himself is a resident of the area and drives on Valley Road daily.

Brian Platz

Outdoor Dining: Town To Re-Install Barricades on One Side of Elm Street 

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Town officials this week approved a plan to re-install barricades along the north side of Elm Street’s one-way stretch for nearly its entire length. Put in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the water-filled white barriers will run from the area out front of Patisserie Salzburg to the alley in front of Chef Luis, following a unanimous vote by the Police Commission during a special meeting Tuesday. They’re designed to expand outdoor dining options in New Canaan, and could become part of an effort to widen the sidewalks on that side of Elm Street permanently, even beyond the stretch from South Avenue to the Playhouse whose construction is now underway. 

“The weather is starting to warm up and I think it’s time to discuss and hopefully approve more expanded outdoor dining,” Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said during the Commission’s meeting, held via videoconference. 

“I know our residents love it and every time I walk up Elm Street I know people are very appreciative of what we can do, he said. “And given that I am starting to see more positive COVID cases in town and starting to see it surge a little bit, I think it’s smart for us to move that forward and expand the outdoor dining as much as possible to support our great restaurants and merchants in town. I think it’s a very appreciated endeavor and I think it’s time to move that forward again.”

Because the town is legally required to preserve an unobstructed four-foot pedestrian way—and cannot, following a complaint of Americans with Disabilities Act violations filed last summer, funnel pedestrians into the street, even if they’re protected by barriers—restaurants will have the option to set up tables in the barricade-protected areas of Elm Street itself, rather than on the sidewalk, according to those who attended the meeting, including municipal department heads from Public Works, Health and Land Use.