Town To Reduce Speed Limits on Four Roads from 30 to 25 MPH

Members of the volunteer group that oversees traffic in New Canaan are seeking to reduce from 30 to 25 mph the speed limits on four remaining roads in town where it makes sense to do so.

Following the most recent meeting of the Police Commission, officials will ask permission from the state to reduce the speed limit on Silvermine Road to 25 mph—something residents of the area long have wanted—and then will take up the same change on Weed Street north of Elm Street, Wahackme Road and Old Norwalk Road near Route 123.

Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works, told members of the Police Commission at their Nov. 16 meeting that he would recommend the change “for uniformity’s sake alone, since we only have four roads left [at 30 mph], to take each one to the state and get to 25 mph across the board.”

Commissioners voted 3-0 in favor of the change.

After a formal letter requesting the reduced speed limits from Police Chief Leon Krolikowski goes to the state and receives approval, it would be up to four weeks for the state make its decision and then just a few days to swap out signage, Mann said at the meeting, held in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department.

The discussion followed a request from residents of the neighborhood to reduce the speed limit on Silvermine as well as to change the centerline from double to single yellow. The latter request was denied—more on that below.

Police Capt. John DiFederico said studies have shown that lowering or raising speed limits doesn’t actually change drivers’ speeds. On Silvermine, the 85^th percentile of motorists travel about 33 mph, against an existing speed limit of 30 mph. Also, DiFederico said, speed played a role in none of the five accidents that have occurred on Silvermine Road in the past two years.

“One concern I do have with lowering the speed is that it might give a false sense of security to people who are new to the neighborhood, or pedestrians or motorists not familiar with the road,” he said. “If we do change it, I just want the expectation to be realistic, that it’s not likely to change the speed.”

The commission also is pursuing a further change in the small “commercial” area of Silvermine, where the market stands opposite the arts center—namely, further reducing the speed limit in that area to 20 mph.

According to Mann, the town without an engineering study—but with state permission—can reduce speeds by 5 mph in such areas, and can install advisory signage reflecting the lower limit.

Regarding the requested change of making Silvermine’s double-yellow line a single line, Mann said he had four concerns. First, it would be inconsistent with the area—Valley Road is a double-yellow all the way from North Wilton Road down, he said. Also, it isn’t clear whether grinding out the existing double-yellow line would mean removing the expensive micro-thin overlay in pieces or plates—the town recently spent $300,000 re-surfacing the road, and a complete re-do of the overlay would be “cost prohibitive,” Mann said. Third, there’s no practical way to do the job well, he said: If the town opts to remove both stripes and redo Silvermine Road with just one, it could end up looking like one thick stripe down the center of the road. But if the town removes just one of the two stripes already in place, the centerline will be shifted six to eight inches toward one side of the road and people will notice that it’s off-center.

Finally, Mann said, moving from double to single yellow lines would run against recommended national standards already adopted by the town.

“I see no reason to take it out at all,” Commissioner Sperry DeCew said of the proposed change to single yellow. “It is conforming to Valley Road and it [Silvermine] is an extension of Valley Road. And I see no reason at all to go against national standards.”