The Board of Police Commissioners endorsed a list of roads to receive striping work in upcoming months during its meeting last week. The board voted after hearing from Public Works Director Fred Hurley on May 4, when the commission met with nearly all members attending in person at Newtown Police Department. The commission additionally decided, at the request of a member, to resume talks about the Main Street flagpole and related safety concerns.

Commission Chair Joel Faxon was joined in the meeting room of the police department by commissioners Neil Chaudhary and Joan Plouffe; commissioner Scott Cicciari participated by phone.

Police Captain Chris Vanghele offered brief reports to the commission last Tuesday evening, as did Lt David Kullgren and Officer Bart Lorancaitis.

Hurley presented a report that outlined center line painting, or striping, and guiderail installation planned for town roads in upcoming months.

His report was broken into three sections. The first included 23 roads that had already been endorsed by the commission, along with their schedule, representing 258,410 linear feet, or 48.941 miles. The second included seven roads added to the original list last year and also endorsed by the commission, representing another 51,373 linear feet, or 9.729 miles.

The third section was a new grouping “which the Public Works Department feels fits the general criteria of need for safety purposes because of traffic volumes and speed as well as continuity of major thru roads,” the report noted. Another 15 roads, totaling 81,633 linear feet, or 15.46 miles, was on that list. Some had already been requested for striping by the commission, Hurley’s report also noted. Some of the roads were painted in the past, but only with a single line. The standard, he said, will be 4-inch double lines.

Hurley told the commission that in the referendum that was passed the previous week, the budget for striping was approved at $125,000, “which is about six times what we used to get before.

“It’s that important,” he added, “because we’ve got almost 80 miles of proposed striping to be done in town.”

Hurley noted that with striping costing 55 to 60 cents per linear foot, each mile “ends up costing about $3,000, so you talk about 40 miles, you’re talking $120,000.”

Hurley expects to stay at that funding level for the next few budgets, he reported.

In conversation with The Newtown Bee following the meeting, Hurley said that many town roads have single lines that need to be updated to current safety standards.

“The national standards set use for double yellow line vs no line,” Hurley said May 10. “Newtown for many years went with single lines, without a problem. Moving forward there will be no more single yellow lines in town.

“It was a joint decision between the Board of Selectmen, Police Commission, and Public Works,” he further explained. “We have walked into this position, we want to get it right, and it’s about safety. We’re trying to do it all from a public safety standpoint.”

Depending on the paving schedule, which can continue into October, he said, “weather permitting, we may be able to do striping before the winter on most roads. Otherwise they’ll be done in the spring.”

Safety Marking Inc has been contracted for the work, Hurley said, and is working with the town to bundle costs. The Bridgeport-based company is the state vendor for bidding with epoxy, the material used in Newtown.

Rather than do a few roads at a time, Safety Markings will do two large batches of striping, Hurley said. That will save on setup fees, he added.

In response to a question last week from Commission Chair Joel Faxon, Hurley said is it his expectation that the 46 roads/40 miles of work currently on his striping list can be done this year.

“Half will be done as soon as we hit July 1,” he said. “The rest will continue out to October.”

The commission voted unanimously to endorse the list of presented roads for striping.

Guiderails

Public Works has a $175,000 budget for guiderails, Hurley also reported last week. He estimates it will cost $1 million to install guiderails everywhere they are needed, he said. Materials and installation runs approximately $40 per foot, he added.

“It’s real easy to run up costs for guiderail,” he told the board on May 4. It will take a few years, and “the state only certifies the metal beams. The Merritt Parkway is the only exception,” he added.

Merritt Parkway Guardrail, designed specifically for the Connecticut roadway, featured steel beams and wood rails.

The “three big projects” at the top of the town’s project list, Hurley said, are Hattertown, Hanover, and Currituck/Parmalee Hill roads.

Brushy Hill Road will be “another $75,000” for guiderail installation, he told the board. That could happen as soon as this budget cycle, Hurley also said, “if we find room in any other projects. If we end up with some money left over after the other contractual items, I will use it on [the Brushy Hill Road] project.”

Town Engineer Ron Bolmer is working on an inventory of roads that need guiderails, Hurley said, “to find areas not compliant or needs replacement.

“Ron has identified this as a major need,” he added.

Developers will be responsible for the installation of guiderails when new developments are constructed, the board was also told.

The Public Works department also has some seed money, Hurley said, to begin adding stop bars — the painted white lines on roads meant to accompany stop signs — to more town roads. Safety Marking has also been contracted for that work.

There is also money for crosswalks, lighted identifiers for crosswalks, and other limited safety measure projects, the commission was told.

Exit 11, Flagpole Updates

When it was time for commissioner participation, Cicciari asked about updates for the Exit 11 reconfiguring project and the Main Street flagpole.

The Exit 11 project will reconstruct and simplify the interchange, removing existing J-shaped ramps that connect I-84 to Wasserman Way. Reconfigured ramps will create a direct link between I-84 and Berkshire Road/State Route 34, according to Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT).

A 100-foot-tall flagpole unshielded by barriers stands in the center of the intersection where Main Street, Church Hill Road, and West Street meet. The five-point intersection is controlled by stop signs on Church Hill Road and West Street.

Making any changes at the flagpole intersection is complicated by the fact both Main Street and Church Hill Road are state roads, and therefore under DOT control. Also, the flagpole is a state-sanctioned landmark.

In response to Cicciari’s first question, Hurley said construction will start year.

“How far they’re going to go, or what’s going to be shut down, I don’t know. But general construction is supposed to start this year,” he said.

In response to the second question, Hurley said he and others have gone to regional leaders “to try and get some support for a plan around the flagpole, and what we keep getting back is Newtown really needs to decide what it’s going to support before the state is going to get very excited about that flagpole.

“I can’t really fault them for that,” he continued. “We’ve had two other major projects for that flagpole that were not well received when we came forward to the public. I think the solution, whatever we’re going to do up there, I think we’ve got to flesh it out, to a very large degree, and make sure we’ve got all the stakeholders who live around there buy into it before we’re going to be successful going forward.”

Hurley and Faxon both reminded Cicciari that the last time the flagpole discussion was raised, things did not go well.

“We went through that process five or six years ago,” Faxon noted.

“It got very uncomfortable,” Hurley said.

“I don’t think I would even call it uncomfortable,” Faxon replied. “It was a mess.”

“The thing is,” Hurley noted, “the state is not going to act on the flagpole until it sees a consensus from the town, and we don’t have that.

“You have to get the Borough on board before anything,” Faxon said. “The people who live around the flagpole consider it part of their neighborhood, and they don’t want it changed.

“There were a lot of divergent opinions, and there was no consensus. It was not an easy process,” he added.

“We haven’t given up,” Hurley said, “but I am not hopeful at this time.”

Cicciari said he recalled talk of forming a flagpole committee, and wondered what happened with that proposal.

“I’m just not sure if that’s the next step, if we’re going down that path, or if we’re done at this point,” he said.

Hurley reiterated that “leadership in the Borough should be broached first. There is different leadership there now,” than the last time the subject was discussed and a study was done, “so it might not be a bad idea to approach the subject.”

The previous study considered roundabouts, eminent domain, additional lighting, Faxon said. The topic was covered in multiple meetings in 2015 and 2016.

“We have rough design materials that were presented to the state, and the state was not receptive,” he said.

Local residents were equally unimpressed, and very vocal about that.

“Given the resistance from people who came to the meetings — and there were many of them — it was not well received. We were just shouted down during the presentation,” Faxon said.

Hurley agreed, adding those who live around the flagpole “consider this their neighborhood, and I get that,” he said. “That’s where you have to get support moving forward, is from the Borough.”

Cicciari listened, but then said that the commission “has a responsibility to flesh it out, and discuss it again. It’s a safety issue.”

“We can put it on the agenda again, and see what we get,” Faxon said, “but just remember the lay of the land.”

He acknowledged Cicciari’s point about safety, though, noting that the five-pointed intersection “is not a safe intersection. It would never be approved if proposed today.”

The commission agreed to request crash rates and traffic counts from the police department’s traffic division, and review “raw materials” from the previous study. The item will be on the agenda for the commission’s June 1 meeting.

Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.