Markeshia Ricks Photo
Patty McGill and her neighbors have seen enough airborne cars jump curbs and land in their yards, taking out landscaping and front porches — and occasionally killing people.
McGill has taken that frustration to government officials, pressing them to save lives and protect her property and that of her neighbors along Forest Road (aka state Route 122) between Willard Street and West Elm. One elected official, state Rep. Pat Dillon, said she is working on legislation to address the longstanding problem.
“I don’t want another mother or father to get that call where someone informs them that their child was in an accident and that they were killed in an accident that could have possibly been prevented,” McGill said.
Both city and state officials say they hear McGill and her neighbors and they are looking at everything from more speed enforcement and traffic reconfiguration to legislation to fix the problems.
A 1.25-mile stretch of Forest Road winding through Westville saw 90 car crashes between 2011 and 2013, and the number-one contributing factor is people tailgating, said Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesman Kevin Nursick. Accidents usually happen during rush hour; 75 percent of those crashes result in some kind of property damage. McGill witnessed a fatal crash in October 2012; it wasn’t the first.
Nursick said it is a common problem that is impacting lives all over the state — people disobeying the rules of the road by speeding, tailgating and generally driving distracted.
“Conn DOT is not an enforcement agency, so we don’t have any tools in our arsenal to help curb speeding drivers,” he said. “But it’s a safety issue and its a personal responsibility issue. We see this type of behavior all too often and it’s difficult to curb it and enforcement is key to bringing motorists into compliance if they fail to do so voluntarily.”
Nothing New
Five years ago city officials tried to tackle the problem after the a speeder killed a neighbor, Jerry Gross, and another speeder sent a cop to the hospital. Both those crashes took place at a blind dead-man’s curve at West Elm and Forest.
Click here, here, here for stories about those previous efforts to find a solution. Today, as Patty McGill can tell you, the problem hasn’t gotten any better.
McGill said she doesn’t want to see more lives destroyed because no one did anything to try to slow down the cars that fly through the area. The posted speed limit on the road is 25 miles per hour; cars, a dump truck and even a school bus were easily cruising above that limit as she spoke with a reporter one sunny recent morning.
That’s not the worst of it.
After about 9 p.m. and well into the wee hours of the morning drivers are speeding recklessly and killing people. McGill said that has to stop.
McGill said she has complained to the city, the state Department of Transportation and even the governor, and she will complain all the way to her member of Congress — whatever it takes — to get somebody to do something.
Cornucopia Of Ideas
Her home on Forest Road has been in her family since the 1970s. A neighbor (who requested anonymity) said the problems on the road have existed almost as long. The neighbor was neatly trimming his hedges, which he has replaced several times because of speeding drivers crashing into them.
McGill said it is a common story on the street. Hedges, fences and even porches have had to be replaced because of cars crashing into them. Across the street from McGill, a neighbor has added concrete posts to his fence to keep cars from crash landing on his porch.
McGill’s neighbor said he thinks three things need to happen to make the street safer:
• More signs to alert drivers of dangerous curves ahead, and a flashing sign that lights up when people exceed the posted speed limit.
• A flashing caution light at West Elm Street and Forest Road.
• Police presence at high speed times between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.
But by now he is doubtful that complaining will get results from government decision-makers.
Issues like this one in town have some citizens appealing for a change in how speeding-ticket revenue is handled. When city cops hand out speeding tickets, the state keeps almost all the money. Some have argued that that gives the city less of an incentive to ticket speeders. (Others argue that keeping more money would encourage the city to hassle drivers and give out too many tickets.) McGill and her neighbors err on the side of city cops ticketing speeders and keeping the money in city coffers.
McGill was successful securing a September field meeting with officials from the state and city transportation departments. Though Route 122 is a state road, the DOT wrote in a letter to her dated Oct. 2 that the city is responsible for making several improvements, including requesting a permit to put up a digital “Your Speed” sign, working with United Illuminating to upgrade lights on the road and cutting back a tree and relocating a stop sign at West Elm to improve visibility.
The state will repaint a “pork chop island” and street markings that Nursick said weren’t done improperly. No time frame has been established for repainting the island; Nursick said it likely will happen before the end of the year.
Other suggested improvements include removing the painted crosswalk across West Elm; more speed and parking enforcement on Route 122 and West Elm; and reinstalling a right-turn only sign so that it does not obstruct the visibility of the stop sign at the corner of Elm and Forest Road.
The city also could make West Elm one-way or a dead end. Nursick said neighbors offered a “cornucopia of ideas,” many of which would fall to the city to implement.
“There are traffic management consequences for the city,” he said. “It’s not an ideal intersection, and whatever decisions are made to improve safety will create inconveniences. It’s a perplexing issue.”
Moving Forward
Doug Hausladen, the city’s director of transportation, traffic and parking, said work orders are already in, and Forest Road could see improvements as early as the next 30 days. Forest Road is on Mayor Toni Harp’s list for upgrades to lighting from older-model high-pressure sodium lights to LED lights, which Hausladen said would provide brighter illumination and more visibility.
He said there also is a work order to cut back trees at West Elm, and for painting a crosswalk for Willard Street. But getting more signage on the road will take a bit more effort on the part of neighbors. Hausladen said the city can’t just put up a sign flashing a driver’s speed if it is above the limit. Such signs cost about $4,000 each and would be an additional expenditure above the department’s budget and would have to be taken before the Board of Alders.
State Rep. Dillon, who has represented the area in the state legislature for 30 years, said she is preparing a package of legislation that would address some of the issues that have plagued the residents of Forest Road for decades. Among other ideas, her legislation would seek to ban trucks from the road and bring city and state officials to the table to study the design of the road and possibly make changes to better accommodate modern vehicles.
“Forest Road might be good for a horse and carriage,” said Dillon, who is seeking reelection this fall. “It was never designed to handle modern traffic.”
McGill said the state has been most responsive to her concerns. She said she wants to see more urgency from the city. It is her mission to make sure that the state’s recommendations are carried out and other improvements are made too.
"But it's a safety issue and its a personal responsibility issue"
This is a ludicrous statement that flies in the face of the past 20 years of city and traffic design. Has Nursick ever left Connecticut?
All the state and city have to do is reduce speeds by designing the road in a slightly different way. Make the lanes nine feet wide and add a bike lane and some temporary curb extensions. It wouldn't cost a thing, but it would save lives and property.
Forest Road is terrifying and it's only a matter of time before more die. We can blame Nursick and the DOT for inaction, not "personal responsibility." Easy for them to say that because they don't live there and won't be the ones dying.