Slow Down!

Reduce Speeds For Safety

To the Editor:

Hurray. Someone finally gets it!

The News-Times reported on Wednesday that the Newtown police targeted 24 high traffic roads in Newtown and issued 109 speeding tickets in May and June. Sgt John Cole was quoted as saying “There’s a lot of speeding going on in town.” Chief Kehoe was reported as saying “speeding is a problem throughout town.”

Perhaps the Police Commission, which is the town’s traffic authority, finally understands that traffic and speeding is an issue all over town. The Commission, according to First Selectman Rosenthal, requested a traffic study of only Queen Street which ultimately cost tax payers $50,000. It’s a shame the Police Commission has been so preoccupied with one street while the rest of the town has suffered with their own traffic and speeding issues.

Last year the Newtown police issued an average of only five traffic citations a day. That’s for the over 260 miles of roads in Newtown. According to The News Times article, the 5,600 vehicles a day on Queen Street alone averaged ten miles [per hour] above the speed limit. Traffic consultants are unanimous in their recommendation that education and enforcement are the most effective deterrents to unsafe speeding drivers.

It’s time the Police Commission, as the appointed Newtown Traffic Authority, develops a plan to make all of Newtown safe from those breaking the posted speed limit. If the Police Commission is too busy to perform the duties of the Traffic Authority perhaps a separate commission should be created. Focusing all their efforts on one road when the issue is townwide was a waste of taxpayer’s resources. We need a plan that addresses the real issues, communitywide, which is within the resources of the town. We don’t need an outside consulting firm, Vollmer Associates, recommending that we should spend $1.6 million dollars on the Queen Street Study Area as was reported in The Newtown Bee. And we don’t a need plan which simply diverts traffic from one road to another.

Let’s hope the powers that be finally listen and get what the residents of Newtown want — a real effort to address the safety needs of all our roads. Lets hope the efforts that resulted in 109 speeding tickets being issued in May and June wasn’t just a public relations effort, but the start of a real enforcement effort, throughout Newtown, to slow speeders.

Kudos to Chief Kehoe, Sgt John Cole, and the rest of the Newtown Police Department. Keep up efforts, we’ll all be safer.

Bruce Walczak

12 Glover Avenue, Newtown                                        August 9, 2006