Regional Planners Seek Funds For

Queen Street Traffic Safety Study

By Andrew Gorosko

At the town’s request, the regional planning agency is seeking federal funds to study improving traffic safety on southern Queen Street. The study would focus on the section of Queen Street lying between its intersections with Glover Avenue and Wasserman Way.

During the past six months, Queen Street residents have mobilized in seeking to have the town improve traffic conditions on the north-south Queen Street, which runs parallel to Route 25.

Queen Street residents have complained to the Police Commission, which is the local traffic authority, that the volume, speed, and noise of traffic on that road in the town center poses public safety and quality-of-life problems. Queen Street links Church Hill Road to Wasserman Way.

The northern section of Queen Street contains a commercial district, Newtown Middle School, and several houses. The southern section is residential.

Many motorists use Queen Street as a link to Wasserman Way. The state built Wasserman Way in the late 1990s to create a major east-west connector road linking Route 25, Interstate 84, and Route 34.

Both Queen Street’s proximity to Wasserman Way and to Reed Intermediate School at Fairfield Hills apparently have increased traffic volume on Queen Street during the past several years.

A recent police traffic count on Queen Street found that the road carries between 5,500 and 6,000 vehicles daily on Mondays through Saturdays, and approximately 3,500 vehicles on Sundays.

In January, the Police Commission endorsed having a traffic study performed on the southern section of Queen Street.

In March 2003, following a lengthy study, the regional planning agency, known as the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials (HVCEO), provided the Police Commission with detailed recommendations on how to improve pedestrian safety on the congested northern section of Queen Street. That study focused on the section of Queen Street lying between its intersections with Church Hill Road and Glover Avenue, an area which carries heavy school-related and commercial traffic.

That safety study’s goal was to determine what changes should be made to the 1,300-foot-long northern section of Queen Street to create a “pedestrian-safe” corridor.

To alleviate traffic congestion on Queen Street, school officials have recommended that more students use school buses to decrease traffic volume. Many parents transport their children to and from Newtown Middle school in private autos.

HVCEO Request

Jonathan Chew, HVCEO’S executive director, said this week that Newtown has requested that the regional planning agency conduct a traffic study focusing on the southern section of Queen Street to gauge how traffic flow could be improved there.

Mr Chew said HVCEO should know by June whether federal funds will be available for such a study. If funding is available, a broader traffic study might address the concept of creating another north-south roadway in town to alleviate some of the existing traffic pressure on Queen Street, Mr Chew said.

Such an alternate route could involve extending Commerce Road to connect it with Wasserman Way, Mr Chew said. The dead-end Commerce Road now extends southward from Church Hill Road, west of the Exit 10 interchange of Interstate 84.

While the 2003 traffic study on northern Queen Street focused on pedestrian safety along a 1,300-foot-long road section where there are sidewalks, a study of southern Queen Street would focus on traffic safety in general. Southern Queen Street does not have sidewalks.

If federal funds become available, a traffic study on southern Queen Street could be completed by June 2006, Mr Chew said.