DOT Counts Traffic On A Slow Day
DOT Counts Traffic On A Slow Day
By Steve Bigham
Have you noticed all the black cable lying across Newtownâs roadways this week? They are actually called âtraffic countersâ and the stateâs Department of Transportation (DOT) is using them to⦠count traffic.
According to DOT worker Wes Roscoe, the cable is designed to count the number of cars passing through a certain area over the course of a day/week. It also measures the speed of each passing car and its classification.
In Newtown, no doubt, those numbers are surely up from 1998 when the last test was taken. The town has had one of the stateâs biggest building booms and almost everyone says an increase in the amount of traffic is one of the biggest changes in town. However, the DOT chose to test Newtown when school was out of session and traffic, particularly along Route 34 near the high school, was lighter than usual, so Newtown may continue to be considered by DOT as a sleepy little town.
No matter, says DOT spokesperson Jackie Henry; the results of this test will not be used to determine whether or not a street needs a traffic signal or a new speed limit. Instead, the numbers are simply handed over to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA).
And what does the FHA do with the results?
âTheyâre used to determine how much funding theyâre going to give to the state,â Mrs Henry said.
DOT officials said the fact that school is out of session will not affect the overall count of a single day, although they acknowledged that it would certainly skew the counts during peaks times of the day.
According to the Newtown school system, there are nearly 600 employees who work in the school system, and most of them drive to work and then drive home. Add in all the buses that pour in and out of each school, the parents who drive their kids to and from school, and the hundreds of NHS upperclassmen who drive to school each day.
None of those cars will be counted this week.
The âupdatedâ traffic statistics will be available later this year, although they may not have much credence here in town.