No, I am not against improving the traffic in and around the borough. I am for a comprehensive approach to how Newtown and the borough approached this subject.

During the recent Police Commission meeting, Victor Krochta, the newly announced candidate for borough warden, exemplifies the problem with being concerned only with a few streets, and notably his own, The Boulevard. The Bee indicted that Mr Krochta urged the Police Commissioner to focus on one or two streets in an experiment on traffic, and even went so far as to suggest that speed bumps be put in to slow down and thus redirect traffic to other borough streets. I would have been more impressed with Mr Krochta running for borough warden if he advocated a solution for the entire borough, rather than just his own neighborhood. Perhaps we now know what his campaign plan and platform is.

The borough is in desperate need of a broader approach to this issue. As Police Commissioner Kehoe said at the recent meeting, “This is not just a Schoolhouse Hill Road issue, it’s a townwide problem.” However, the suggestion that the town might now do another traffic study, first Southern Queen Street, and now on Schoolhouse, The Boulevard, and Wendover Road, simply heightens my concern. The town can’t keep reacting to some isolated citizens who care about their street’s traffic issues in this type of haphazard approach. Next we’ll hear from Sugar Street residents, or Glover, and what about everyone living on Main Street. Or how about those residents on Route 34 or Toddy Hill Road. Will we offer to do yet another traffic study when these neighbors organize and address the traffic commission?

It time for the warden of the borough and the first selectman to appoint a Borough Traffic Committee (perhaps even a townwide committee), which would represent the entire borough and town, to study and suggest ways to manage traffic into, out of, and around the borough.

Sincerely,

Bruce W. Walczak

12 Glover Avenue, Newtown                                         March 8, 2005