Let’s Make The Flagpole

Intersection Safer

To the Editor:

I want to add my voice to Frederick Roy’s [“It’s Time For Traffic Signals At The Flagpole,” 6/19/09] and to those citizens’ voices who have written to The Bee in past years regarding the need to make the intersection at the flagpole safer. Who would know better than Police Chief Kehoe about the hazardous driving conditions at the flagpole and the need to reconfigure the intersection?

I, too, moved to Newtown in the 1980s and have read of the accidents at the flagpole over the years. I also barely avoided one myself about ten years ago after picking up my son from Trinity Day School. To quote Mr Roy, I was “foolhardy” enough to make a left hand turn from Church Hill Road onto Main Street. After that near miss I vowed to never attempt that dangerous maneuver again. I also agree with Mr Roy that making a right hand turn from Church Hill Road onto Main Street is “almost as dangerous,” especially when drivers create two lanes at the top of Church Hill Road, one for turning left and one for turning right, blocking each other’s sight lines.

I am concerned about the need to preserve the beauty of Main Street, and I am grateful to those who work so hard to hang onto and improve their historic homes. Main Street is still the “heart” of Newtown, and we must be respectful of those good citizens who want to live there. But we also have a social and legal responsibility as good citizens to protect all drivers, young and old, from extremely hazardous road conditions. The intersection at the flagpole is extremely hazardous as well as confusing to those unfamiliar with it.

Newtown has changed a lot since my husband and I moved to our first home on Ferris Road 21 years ago. There is more vehicular traffic. It is time to revisit the idea of reconfiguring and/or installing traffic signals at the flagpole intersection. It is obvious to anyone who lives here that the intersection is dangerous. Let’s work together to make it safer.

Sincerely,

Melinda Reynolds

19 Cemetery Road, Newtown                                          June 24, 2009