Responding to traffic and safety concerns from the neighborhood, town officials say they’re asking the state for permission to make changes in the area of Conrad Road. Officials are asking the state Department of Transportation whether Conrad—a cut-through between Gerdes Road and South Avenue for motor vehicles seeking to get onto the Merritt Parkway at Exit 37—could be designated as a “no thru traffic” street, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. The town also can ask the state whether the timing of the light at Gerdes Road and South Avenue could be adjusted in order to release more motor vehicles from Gerdes onto the Merritt, Mann said, though that “would be very difficult to enforce.”
“We would just be shifting it back to Gerdes one way or another,” Mann said during the Police Commission’s July 19 meeting, held at police headquarters and via videoconference. The DOT’s Office of State Traffic Administration or OSTA “might not have a problem because it would be intra-town not inter-town, but it might be a problem with enforcement,” he added. In addition, the state’s “primary concern all the time is traffic on their road,” Route 124/South Avenue, Mann said.
