Around Town
Parade Hill Road Residents Petition Town for Traffic-Calming
|
Saying their neighborhood sees vehicles driving dangerously fast around blind turns as well as heavy commercial traffic, residents of Parade Hill Road and adjoining streets are appealing to town officials for traffic-calming. A petition signed by 33 residents of Parade Hill Road and its offshoots—Hampton Lane, Rural Drive, Siwanoy Lane and Riverbank Court—calls for town officials to consider a speed limit reduction, sidewalk construction and/or limitation of the streets as a cut-thru for commercial traffic (traveling between Oenoke Ridge Road and Route 123). Mary Maechling, a mother of three boys—South School third- and first-graders and a 3-year-old preschooler at home—said that in order for her kids to play safely in the front yard of her home on Parade Hill Road, she must position herself at the end of the driveway. “I’m sure any parent would do that on a busy road, but I’m scared because even if a driver sees them [the kids], nobody slows down,” Maechling told NewCanaanite.com. At its southern end, Parade Hill starts at the “off-ramp” for southbound traffic on 123—one of the worst intersections in New Canaan—and follows a roughly straight line past Riverbank Court, then abruptly turns 90 degrees west and climbs a steep hill with another sharp turn before coming perpendicularly into Oenoke Ridge Road.