Board of Selectmen
Talmadge Hill Railroad Crossing

Citing COVID-19 Fallout, Selectman Williams Calls for Measured Spending on Commuter Lots

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The town should start thinking more carefully about how it spends money on commuter parking facilities, because it’s unclear in the aftermath of the COVID-19 public health emergency how commuting will change for residents who work in New York City, Selectman Nick Williams said Tuesday. While voicing support for a contract extension to repave damaged sections of the Talmadge Hill Train Station lot, Williams asked fellow members of the  the Board of Selectmen how confident they are that New Canaan will “have the same level of commuters in three, four, five years as we had three months ago?”

“I’m not sure,” Williams said during a regular Board meeting, held via videoconference. 

He added, “I’ve got to believe that—I don’t want to use the word ‘sea change’—but I think there is goin to be a big change in the way people do business in New York City. We have learned how to work from home, by necessity. I just think we should think long and hard about the spend we make going forward on commuter lots. I am commuter.

Government

Town Pursues Affordable ‘Bus Stop’-Style Canopies for Talmadge Hill Train Station Platform

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Town officials say they’re looking at using monies collected through parking permits and fees to fund the installation of canopies at Talmadge Hill Train Station. It had been thought in the past that the parking fund, which now stands at about $280,000, could only pay for paving, but in fact it can be used for other improvements at the state-owned station property, according to Parking Commissioner Chris Hering. Commuters themselves have said their number-one complaint isn’t poor paving “but actually coverage at the Talmadge Hill station,” according to Hering. “That there is no canopy at the Talmadge Hill station and they’re standing out in the rain isn’t enjoyable,” Hering said during the Commission’s Sept. 4 meeting, held at Town Hall.

Government
Talmadge Hill Railroad Crossing

Town To Seek State Funding for Planned New Sidewalk for Talmadge Hill Commuters

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Town officials are seeking state funds to pursue a long-sought sidewalk installation at Talmadge Hill that’s designed to improve pedestrian safety for rail commuters. The estimated $350,000 project would see a new, five-foot-wide concrete sidewalk and granite curb run along the northern edge of Talmadge Hill Road from Route 106 up to and past the highest parking tier above the heavily used railroad station, according to Public Works Director Tiger Man. It would replace and extend what’s there now, a blacktop sidewalk with a blacktop curb, Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting Wednesday. “This has been an area that people have asked for for a number of years,” Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. Before and after work, scores of rail commuters make their way to and from the platform at Talmadge Hill, between cars parked in the lots as well as idling cars that pull over on the narrow road to drop them off and pick them up.

News
Talmadge Hill Railroad Crossing

Police on Untimely Death: New Canaan Man, 56, Appears To Have Shot Himself in Parking Lot at Talmadge Hill Train Station

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New Canaan Police said late Wednesday that they’re investigating a 56-year-old town man’s death by what appears to be self-inflicted gunshot wound in the area of the Talmadge Hill Train Station. Police were dispatched to an upper parking lot at the station at 5:54 p.m. on June 21 “on a report of a male who might be in distress,” according to a press bulletin issued by Lt. Jason Ferraro, the department’s public information officer. There, police found the man, who appeared already to have shot himself, outside his own motor vehicle, Ferraro said. The investigation into the man’s untimely death is active and no further information will be released right now, he said. “It should be noted that this is an isolated incident and no danger exists to any other members of the public,” Ferraro said in the press bulletin.