Around Town

Neighbor: Parked Cars Pinching East Maple Street So Much It’s Become ‘Pretty Unbearable’

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An increasing number of parked and double-parked cars pinch East Maple Street so tightly up toward Main that it no longer functions as a two-way street, one longtime resident told traffic officials this week. According to David Shea, who has lived on East Maple for 23 years, commercial traffic brought in part by the relocated New Canaan Cleaners—combined with some employees, all-day-parking rail commuters and a lack of parking regulations—has exacerbated the situation in the past five months so that it’s become “pretty unbearable.”

“If somebody starts coming up and you’ve got that channel of cars, [then] somebody has got to back up—otherwise, nobody is getting through,” Shea said Wednesday during the Police Commission’s meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. He requested that the commission conduct a traffic flow study and make recommendations that may include creating new, enforceable regulations for the Parking Bureau or possibly making the street—a popular cut-through between Hoyt and Main—a one-way street. Police commissioners asked for a rundown on current parking regulations. On one side of the street, Shea said, there’s 2-hour parking between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.

Government

Police Commission Weighs Teacher-Student Parking Spot Swap at New Canaan High School

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Town officials say the best way for New Canaan High School to ensure the safety of students who now must cross a bustling main access road through the campus in the mornings might be to have the teens and teachers swap parking areas. As it is now, most students park in the long lot that runs up alongside the track, then cross the accessway to get into the school, while teachers who have arrived earlier are parking in lots closer to the building itself, according to members of the Police Commission. Based on a suggestion from a working group that oversees traffic calming in New Canaan, the Police Commission on Wednesday opened the possibility of recommending that the district try out the swap. “I like the idea of swapping, because if teachers are coming at 7 o’clock and the kids are coming at 7:30, get the teachers out by the track and let them walk,” Commissioner Paul Foley said during the group’s meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. Ultimately it will be the school’s own decision how to address what Police Chief Leon Krolikowski flagged as a pedestrian safety hazard at the high school.

Business

Changing Elm Street To Paid Parking: Officials Eye Solutions to Problem of Downtown Employees

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Downtown workers—not shoppers, not diners—take up 70 percent of the parking spaces on Elm Street, and one way to reverse that phenomenon could be converting the main business drag to metered spots and designating the free spaces a bit further off of it, officials say. The prospect has been discussed on and off for years–its major merit being that employees only force themselves into the downtown spots because as it is, they’re free—though it typically has been met with opposition because there’s a feeling it would be “non-village-y” to put meters in the heart of the village, Parking Bureau Supervisor Karen Miller said Wednesday during the Police Commission’s regular meeting. Yet there likely is no more effective way to address “the most sophisticated game of musical cars that you have ever seen in your life,” Miller said, referring to workers’ habit of keeping the spots for themselves by swapping with one another prior to reaching their 90-minute limit at a single space. “The real solution is that it should be paid parking [on Elm and Main] and nothing in the [off-street lots], absolutely,” Miller said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “The employees are parking there because it is free and they can move from one street to another.”

It’s a game of musical cars that goes on “literally all day,” she added.

Government

Concerned Parents Seek Oenoke Ridge Crosswalk at Parade Hill Lane

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Parents in the area of an acknowledged major intersection for commercial trucks are requesting a crosswalk to give their kids a safe route to town. A number of new families have moved into Parade Hill Lane and the houses fronting Oenoke Ridge Road near it, so that up to 20 children are now in the area, including many that are now at an age where they want to walk to town, according to John Sheffield of 24 Parade Hill Lane. “We wanted to see what the possibility would be to put in a crosswalk across Oenoke, from Parade Hill Lane to Parade Hill Road on the other side,” Sheffield said at the Sept. 17 meeting of the Police Commission. The idea would be to hook up with the sidewalk that runs down toward God’s Acre along the eastern side of Oenoke Ridge Road.

Business

Rule Changes Weighed To Free Up Downtown Parking for Shoppers (Not Employees)

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New Canaan officials are deciding whether to introduce new parking rules designed to free up parking spaces for customers—rather than employees—of downtown shops and other businesses. Specifically, and at the suggestion of a New Canaan resident who is recommending the practice, officials are thinking about adding to 90-minute parking signs a “per day” notice—effectively preventing a motorist from parking the same car twice in the same spot on a given day. In conjunction with that, members of the volunteer group that oversees on-street parking in New Canaan could designate an entire zone—say, the length of Elm Street—as an area in which a car could only park once per day at its signed time limit. What likely is happening now, Police Commission Chair Stuart Sawabini said, is that employees at shops wait until a few minutes before their parking time is up, then “go out to the street, drive their car to different location [on the same street] and park again.”

“Hence the white chalk mark that was established by the town parking enforcement officer now disappears underneath the tire and looks as though they’re a new visitor to town,” Sawabini said at the commission’s regular monthly meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. The idea of changing the parking rules had been proposed by New Canaan’s Jeff Holland, the commission said.