‘Traffic Calming’ Crosswalks

Are Gone For The Winter

By John Voket

The raised “traffic calming” crosswalks that were making motorists and some residents in the area of Queen Street and Glover Avenue see red, are gone for now, with nothing left but the bright wide painted zebra stripe patterns warning motorists of their former presence.

“Yes we’re done with them for the season,” Public Works Director Fred Hurley told The Bee Tuesday, as his crews prepared for the town’s first predicted snow event of the year. A similar weather situation put a temporary end to the town’s first raised crosswalk when it was hit and damaged by a plow during the first snow of 2008.

According to Mr Hurley, the strategic placement of the two raised crosswalks coincided with counters that were monitoring changes in traffic speed and volume as part of a Police Department study on the ongoing traffic-related concerns in the borough and particularly on and around Queen Street.

“The police were looking to monitor traffic diversion,” Mr Hurley said. “They are trying to determine if more drivers would go around because of the crosswalks.

The taxpayer bill for the project and the reusable equipment that assembles into the portable raised crosswalks was about $16,000. And since town workers first learned about what to do, and what not to do, when assembling Newtown’s first traffic calming crosswalk in 2008, Mr Hurley says they have more than doubled the speed of the installation and deinstallation process.

“Last year it took one day for four guys to put it up and a day to take it down,” he said. “This year, it took about a day and a half for those four guys to put up and take down both crosswalks.”

The total equated labor cost, Mr Hurley estimated, cost taxpayers “about $1,500.”

The town has been experimenting with the temporary raised crosswalks to learn whether permanent raised crosswalks of durable road construction materials should be installed. Mr Hurley said he plans to meet with the Police Commission, which is the local traffic authority, in reviewing the upcoming results of the traffic study based focusing on the presence of raised crosswalks.