WHY WE BEGAN THIS SUB-PAGE:  "S" IS FOR S-CURVE
Q:  HOW MANY TRAFFIC LIGHTS INCLUDING ONE FLASHING ONE, ARE THERE IN WESTON?   A:  5  (2014)

FEB. 27, 2014 POWER POINT
S-Curve feeds into H-Intersection - effects on Cobb's Mill Inn?  YES.  Any on the unpaved portion of Newtown Turnpike?  NO...except traffic increase?

 Other pages on this website on traffic and transportation can be found by returning to the index page and typing in a word or two in the search box.



THE OTHER SHOE DROPS...POWER POINT HERE:  What is the 2016 (?) by-pass plan? 
SEE YR 2000 S-CURVE WORKAROUND HERE

ABOVE IS THE DOT ENGINEER DESCRIBING THE CT PLAN (THE ONLY ONE THEY CAN LEGALLY DO THEMSELVES)...

CLICK ON PLAN ABOVE FOR DRAWING OF NEW BRIDGE PROPOSED (WIDER, INCLUDES BIKE LANES)
Who is primarily affect?  Town Engineer involved in these matters - same area where neighbors have asked for relief, trees felled, now what?
NO ACTIVITY OUTSIDE CT DOT R.O.W. AT THIS POINT

REMEMBER THIS? 
Rock blasted, road re-designed for better cant.  CTDOT had wanted to do this earlier (site of a 1980 fatality)



WESTON RACQUET CLUB'S NAME USED AS IT IS THE DESTINATION OF MANY TRIPS TO WESTON.


Tonight at the Town Hall Meeting Room is an "information meeting" at 7pm on proposed work to be done to a bridge on route 53 - read more here.
From the Weston Racquet website "direction" map:  Weston Racquet, top, Merritt Parkway Exit 42, bottom  Will a firetruck be able to pass in emergency?  An ambulance?

Public Information Meeting after first date - what else this winter - snowed out!
CTDOT Public Information session
Town Hall Meeting Room
Feb. 19, 2014, beginning at 6:30pm

Please be advised that the CT DOT will be holding the previously scheduled, for Feb. 5, information session on work they are planning on the Route 53 bridge near Weston Racquet  Club tonight at 7pm in the Town Hall Meeting Room.  Private discussions may be held with DOT staff prior to meeting, at 6:30pm.

The plan is to CLOSE ROUTE 53 FOR TWO MONTHS (in the summer of 2015 - July and August).  We assume that means virtually "closing to thru-traffic" so that those living on Newtown Tunpike will have access to their residences.  What is the plan for access to Weston Racquet Club?  Answer:  bridge will have one lane open , we think, at all times. What does the Emergency Services/Fire Department think about this?  Will a fire truck be able to cross this bridge in an emergency?

We quote CT DOT:  "...The road closure will be in the summer months of July and August (2015 - next year) to avoid the regular school year session.  State routes will be designated as the official detour routes, and will be posted prior to the start of construction.  Properties located at the Weston Racquet Club driveway and northwards will be accessed from the Route 53 southbound direction, and properties located south of the Weston Racquet Club will be accessed from the Route 53 northbound direction."  Got that? Had I attended, I would have asked about fire safety for the northern part of town...Third Firehouse never built is one answer...regional  response is another.




How about my dogwoods? 
SAFETY V. RURAL CHARACTER 2011



NTSB recommends ban on driver cell phone use
AP
By JOAN LOWY
13 Dec. 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — States should ban all driver use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices, except in emergencies, the National Transportation Board said Tuesday.  The recommendation, unanimously agreed to by the five-member board, applies to both hands-free and hand-held phones and significantly exceeds any existing state laws restricting texting and cellphone use behind the wheel.

The board made the recommendation in connection with a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year. The board said the initial collision in the accident near Gray Summit, Mo., was caused by the inattention of a 19 year-old-pickup driver who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash.  The pickup, traveling at 55 mph, collided into the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle. A second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.

The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured in the Aug. 5, 2010, accident near Gray Summit, Mo.  About 50 students, mostly members of a high school band from St. James, Mo., were on the buses heading to the Six Flags St. Louis amusement park.  The accident is a "big red flag for all drivers," NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman said at a meeting to determine the cause of the accident and make safety recommendations.

It's not possible to know from cell phone records if the driver was typing, reaching for the phone or reading a text at the time of the crash, but it's clear he was manually, cognitively and visually distracted, she said.

"Driving was not his only priority," Hersman said. "No call, no text, no update is worth a human life."

The board is expected to recommend new restrictions on driver use of electronic devices behind the wheel. While the NTSB doesn't have the power to impose restrictions, it's recommendations carry significant weight with federal regulators and congressional and state lawmakers.  Missouri had a law banning drivers under 21 years old from texting while driving at the time of the crash, but wasn't aggressively enforcing the ban, board member Robert Sumwalt said.

"Without the enforcement, the laws don't mean a whole lot," he said.

Investigators are seeing texting, cell phone calls and other distracting behavior by operators in accidents across all modes of transportation with increasing frequency. It has become routine for investigators to immediately request the preservation of cell phone and texting records when they launch an investigation.  In the last few years the board has investigated a commuter rail accident that killed 25 people in California in which the train engineer was texting; a fatal marine accident in Philadelphia in which a tugboat pilot was talking on his cellphone and using a laptop; and a Northwest Airlines flight that flew more than 100 miles past its destination because both pilots were working on their laptops.

The board has previously recommended bans on texting and cell phone use by commercial truck and bus drivers and beginning drivers, but it has stopped short of calling for a ban on the use of the devices by adults behind the wheel of passenger cars.  The problem of texting while driving is getting worse despite a rush by states to ban the practice, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week. In November, Pennsylvania became the 35th state to forbid texting while driving.

About two out of 10 American drivers overall — and half of drivers between 21 and 24 — say they've thumbed messages or emailed from the driver's seat, according to a survey of more than 6,000 drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  And what's more, many drivers don't think it's dangerous when they do it — only when others do, the survey found.

At any given moment last year on America's streets and highways, nearly 1 in every 100 car drivers was texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a handheld electronic device, the safety administration said. And those activities spiked 50 percent over the previous year.  The agency takes an annual snapshot of drivers' behavior behind the wheel by staking out intersections to count people using cellphones and other devices, as well as other distracting behavior.

Driver distraction wasn't the only significant safety problem uncovered by NTSB's investigation of the Missouri accident. Investigators said they believe the pickup driver was suffering from fatigue that may have eroded his judgment at the time of the accident. He had an average of about five and a half hours of sleep a night in the days leading up to the accident and had had fewer than five hours of sleep the night before the accident, they said.

The pickup driver had no history of accidents or traffic violations, investigators said.  Investigators also found significant problems with the brakes of both school buses involved in the accident. A third school bus sent to a hospital after the accident to pick up students crashed in the hospital parking lot when that bus' brakes failed.  However, the brake problems didn't cause or contribute to the severity of the accident, investigators said.

Another issue involved the difficulty passengers had exiting the first school bus after the accident. The bus' front and rear bus doors were unusable after the accident — the front door because the front bus was on top of the tractor truck cab and too high off the ground, and the rear door because the front of the bus had intruded five feet into the rear of the first bus.  Passengers had to exit through an emergency window, but the raised latch on the window kept catching on clothing as students tried to escape, investigators said. Exiting was further slowed because the window design required one person to hold the window up in order for a second person to crawl through, they said.

It was critical for passengers to exit as quickly as possible because a large amount of fuel puddled underneath the bus was a serious fire hazard, investigators said.

"It could have been a much worse situation if there was a fire," Donald Karol, the NTSB's highway safety director, said.


Let's Not Overreact On Trees
Careful planting and pruning can reduce future damage
Hartford Courant Editorial
November 10, 2011

Most of the vast damage from the freak fall snowstorm that whacked Connecticut on Oct. 29 was caused by falling trees and branches. Deciduous trees still had most of their leaves, which held the snow and added weight to the branches. Soon enough, branches were popping and snapping, falling and taking power lines with them. This was the second storm in two months in which falling limbs caused major power outages.

By the end of last week, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was saying that the state had to rethink the relationship between trees and wires. He is right, to be sure. But the operative word is "think." Let's avoid a panicked political response.

"If all the trees near homes and power lines had been cut down, we wouldn't have had this problem," said Jack Hale, Hartford's parks operations manager. "But we'd have other problems."

He too is correct. Mature street trees clean the air and sequester tons of carbon. They offer shade that cools homes and makes pavement last longer. They calm traffic, reduce noise and add immeasurably to the look and feel of a street. They increase property values.

There are ways to compromise. Utility lines should be buried where feasible. Tree-trimming programs need to be stepped up and better coordinated. Tree planting must be done with more awareness of wires. Property owners and public officials have to remember that the little acorn does indeed grow into a mighty oak, and it could be a problem if it is planted too close to wires. There are also shorter trees that can be planted under wires, or taller, narrower trees that can fit into tighter spaces.

Mr. Hale said a lot of trees will have to be planted to make up for the trees lost in the two storms. Perhaps with some forethought, we can enjoy the benefits of trees without creating a future arboreal disaster.

Malloy Wants Aggressive Program To Remove Trees, Vegetation Along State Roads
By JANICE PODSADA, jpodsada@courant.com The Hartford Courant
9:30 p.m. EDT, September 12, 2011

Connecticut prefers its lawns neatly trimmed and its trees scruffy.

But in big storms, those big, unkempt trees can become downright dangerous. Add in rain, sleet or snow and "all bets are off," said H. Dennis P. Ryan, urban forestry professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "You throw in 50- or 60-mile winds and suddenly you've got trees and branches taking out the wires and blocking the roads."

Trees and limbs felled by Tropical Storm Irene caused the majority of power outages throughout the state, affecting more than 830,000 utility customers. Connecticut has the highest percentage of urban tree cover (49.3 percent) of any state, according to a 2008 study by the U.S. Forest Service.  But striking a balance between trees, tree-lovers and utility companies is no easy feat.

"We like the bucolic, rustic look of our state, but there's a price to pay for that," said Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, co-chairman of the legislature's energy committee.

"One of the reasons Connecticut has experienced so many outages and the length of the time to make repairs is because Connecticut, the land of steady habits, resists the amount of tree cutting that other states do as a matter of course," Fonfara said.

"Regulators in an effort to keep rates lower have been rather stingy toward additional tree cutting. The company will only do as much tree cutting as the regulators allocate. There's also a significant amount of resistance in communities to tree cutting, particularly in southeast Connecticut," Fonfara said.

"Tree-trimming is built into the rates that are charged to customers," said Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the Connecticut Light & Power Co. That said, CL&P is not a "tree-trimming company. Our job is to make sure the trees are trimmed within a certain distance of the lines: 8 feet of clearance on the side, 10 feet of clearance below the power line and 15 feet above."

But that goal isn't always possible because CL&P's tree-trimming budget requests haven't always been approved by state utility regulators.

"The appropriate level of tree-trimming expense … has been an issue of contention in every CL&P rate case that I have participated in since 1985," said Richard Sobolewski, supervisor of technical analysis in the state's Office of Consumer Counsel.

In 2008, for example, CL&P requested $25.5 million to keep the trees trimmed. The state Department of Public Utility Control — now called the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority — approved $19.6 million.

Last year, state regulators authorized CL&P to spend $19.6 million a year through 2012 on tree trimming based on a five-year maintenance cycle. A more aggressive four-year trim cycle, which CL&P and some state officials say could reduce the incidence of power outages, especially during major storms, would have cost an additional $9.7 million this year and $6.7 million next year.  In the meantime, the cost to hire tree trimmers certified to work around power lines has risen, as have costs associated with traffic control by municipal police officers. Each town is different, but many municipalities require a police officer to be on-site when a utility undertakes routine or emergency maintenance.

According to CL&P, the average cost for police doing traffic control for routine tree-trimming maintenance increased by 50 percent in the past few years. In 2007, traffic costs associated with tree trimming totaled about $620,000. In 2008, those costs rose to $1.1 million. By 2009, the cost for police traffic control was $1.9 million.  Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants the state, in particular the Department of Transportation, to re-examine its tree policy with an eye toward a more aggressive program of removing trees, limbs and vegetation near state highways.

Just as the bulk of power outages during Tropical Storm Irene were related to downed trees and branches, most road closures were due to trees, said Kevin Nursick, a DOT spokesman.

"At the height of the storm, 300 state roads were closed due to trees," Nursick said.

"The governor is considering plans to remove vegetation as a safety issue and to protect electric wires," Juliet Manalan, a spokeswoman for Malloy, said Monday.

As part of Malloy's call to cull more trees and vegetation from state roads and highways, DOT officials are reviewing the agency's tree-trimming and removal policies.  In the 149 towns that it serves, CL&P has nearly 17,000 miles of electric wires, which, stretched end-to-end, would be more than two-thirds of the Earth's circumference.

"There are more trees here along our lines than any other state I've worked in," said Sean Redding, a CL&P supervisor for vegetation management. "And I've worked in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Florida."

"Customers here love the canopy; in fact, it defines New England," said Gross, the CL&P spokesman, who spent Monday afternoon watching a CL&P tree crew remove a fallen tree that threatened to topple power lines along Nooks Hill Road in Cromwell.

"The last full hit was Hurricane Gloria in 1985. The trees that were not taken down by Gloria have grown a lot since then," Gross said.

"It's a double-edged sword. They can be such a liability," added Redding, who was also on site Monday to oversee the emergency operation. "Trees are the number one cause of outages across the state. CL&P gets 7,000 calls a year from customers — the majority of which are requests for tree trimming."

Nearly 70 percent of Connecticut's trees are 60 to 99 years old — which means "they're big," said Ryan, the UMass professor.

"The poor utility gets beat up," Ryan said, referring to CL&P, which, he said has "some of the best arborists in New England."

"They're constantly in a battle with towns and homeowners trying to keep the trees clear of the power lines," Ryan said. "We blame the utilities when, in point of fact, the municipal trees are not being maintained."

In other cases, said Ryan, "you have landscapers and homeowners in urban and suburban areas, planting large, fast-growing trees right under the power lines — the utility doesn't do this. You plant a pin oak, and in five or six years it can be grazing the electric wires."

S-CURVE

WESTON'S SELECTMEN AND POLICE DEPARTMENT WANTED IT AND SO WE'VE GOT IT:  "A Spot Improvement" on the S-Curve at White Oak Lane and Georgetown Road.  Accident June 15 in the late morning rush hour near Hillside Road...three separate and uncoordinated construction activities up and down Georgetown Road had slowed traffic...for more click HERE!
In the beginning, in the late 1970's, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved the White Oak Lane subdivision.  The then Police Chief noted, among other things, that the sight lines should be improved at this new road's intersection with State Route 57 (Georgetown Road).  In August of 1980, a stationwagon and a motorcycle had a head-on collision, with a death resulting.  Below, left to right, the rockface, the warning signs erected, and the light poles installed over the years by the State of Connecticut.
"X MARKS THE SPOT"--Aspetuck Land Trust owns a part of it...Yr 2000

The State of Connecticut will be blasting down this rockface some more soon with the permission of the Aspetuck Land Trust (a small part of the road widening is on their property, donated to ALT by the estate of the late Eva LeGalliene, we think)...

The cliff has been blasted back (post-demolition shots not shown--when the work is complete and it is safe again, "About Town" will take those pictures...anyone who would care to stand in the middle of the road at this time and do so will end up as road kill); drainage has been installed and now the pavers are on the job...

How fast do cars travel at this spot on Georgetown Road?  In the time it took for autowind to move ahead, the vehicle in the two frames at the left had motored past White Oak Lane;  the Weston police cruiser shown above is hugging the centerline...
SPORTSCAR ENTHUSIASTS AND RACECAR DRIVERS LOVED THIS SPOT...HOW LONG UNTIL A FATALITY OCCURS AT THE NEXT PART OF THE S-CURVE SEQUENCE?  VIEW LOOKING NORTH, AFTER D.O.T. WORK:
ipping along on a lovely summer's day, this family vehicle straddles the yellow line...
How fast will a driver such as this one go when the rockface is gone and the straightaway extends as far south as the next curve in this series of s-curves?  Although the next one is sloped more favorably, Calvin Road, a through street from neighboring Wilton, empties out just there!!!  Perhaps these cars, inching into the roadway to check on-coming cars (and other vehicles such as a truck, a school bus, etc.) in both directions will prove more dangerous than the original problem at White Oak Lane?  We hope we are proven wrong!


HEADING SOUTH ON RTE 57, AFTER THE S-CURVE...IS THE H-INTERSECTION.

QUESTION:  Is "improving" the "H-Intersection" next--replacing the bridge over the West Branch of the Saugatuck River at Cobb's Mill Road?  Does this come into play as Cobb's Mill Inn tries to reopen in 2011?  ANSWER:  Cobb's Mill reopened and nope, nothing yet on "H" intersection...WHOA!!!  Thereis a plan...what is it?  Public Meeting Feb. 27, 2014...