Road and Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

What time are you doing?

It's 5.59.

Okay, well, we'll call the meeting to order. We'll say six o'clock, so maybe we can get out of here much earlier. So I'd like to start by asking someone who would make a motion to approve the minutes of the June meeting.

I will.

If someone doesn't remember what happened, I have copies of it here, but technically, Each group has to approve the minutes of previous meetings for them to be official record, otherwise they're drafts. So are there any corrections or questions or anything? So all in favor of approving the minutes? I opposed, abstain, the minutes are approved. Also, I think I want to make a regular comment agenda item of kind of approval of the agenda. So if anybody would like to address any issues that aren't on the agenda, this is your chance for a regular meeting where we can adjust the agenda. Did you have a chance to speak too? I attended yesterday evening.

Yeah.

So would you like to? Yeah. Okay. So we'll put a report by Bradley as the first thing for committee business. Do you make a motion to that?

Oh, make a motion. We listen to his conversation. To adjust the agenda? Yeah.

Okay. Second? John, all in favor? Okay. Public comment? I don't see anyone. Do you, Cassie?

Not unless they're on board with that.

Do you want me to mention some speed data numbers? Yeah, let's go through the order, Jack. Okay. All right.

So my issue is,

for those who weren't here or aren't aware, was about the roadways and the way it affects pedestrian cyclists. So I attended the Household Waste and Recycling Committee yesterday evening during their public comment section. Spoke to them about, so the nickel and dip money is being used. That was what we, that was what I, this year's road last time. If you're a recycling coordinator person, and um she doesn't have a job but uh we spoke around like volunteer collaborative efforts either between like townspeople or like boy scouts or even high school students that need community service hours for uh like nhs or community service club is another thing that exists in the high school which is a possibility um but there's no real there's no money for it in the budget, so to speak, as to get and clean up crews. The other issue is on 156 and Route 1, which are the most heavily littered on roads in town, those are all under the purview of the CQDOT, they told me. So, well, we could organize a volunteer effort to clean those areas up.

Even on state roads?

Well, we could do it on a volunteer basis, but it's not... Not like the town public works. But they're going to try and get back to me on how often those roadways are swept. I know it's at least once a year in the spring after sort of the winter thaw.

I live on what I would call the side street of Heffon Farm Road. I know our street's done twice a year. It's done in the spring and in the fall. And it seems like I would guess the main purpose of that is to keep the storm drains open.

So real quick, I actually, my cousin is the one, he works in the DLP. He is the one that actually sweeps these rooms. So if he's available, I'll get you an answer as soon as I can.

Okay.

See, actually, I know he works at a Waterford garage. It's actually the way the Waterford garage works. It's kind of regional. And I remember a few weeks ago, him and I were here a couple months ago. He was like, oh, they're outdoors. So they were like, oh, send a sweeper out. And he was actually sweeping group one at that time as well. But I know like in our kind of Waterford, it's like once a year in the springtime, that's it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they were going to reach out to like some community service organizations. One individual is like really interested in the idea of like kicking it out to like Boy Scouts potentially to have a bit. But yeah, it's sort of up in the air. They're going to get back to me on.

Another commission, Open Space Commission. We had Boy Scouts. do a number of projects for us. We have one scheduled to do a project in September, but they're mostly young guys who are interested in getting to be the Eagle Scout patch, and they want to do one pretty intensive project. But we've done a lot with it. It used to be Environmental Club, I don't know what it's called in the high school now. And they look for monthly things to do, so that would be something to consider. One thing I wanted to ask you, as a vice post, and I was thinking about this when I asked if you'd be meeting with the waste committee, is on the survey we did a while back, someone, as a bicyclist said, people shouldn't leave their trash cans actually in the roadway. And when you have a roadway with not, like 156, for example, with not much of a shoulder, anything you've got blue or green, thing there. It might cause you to swerve up and go further around.

The motorist lane, yeah. And one of the things is virtually non-existent shoulders to begin with. And then add the fact that they just took sale of the road. So like riding in the gravelly unsettled bit is not super pleasant. Sure. So yeah, I kind of like ride right on the white shoulder line.

So to go attached to like your chain riding, we actually had a incident down your hallmarks ice cream the lady was riding a bike uh grab the bike style riding a bike car was coming up she you know how you just feel like something's peaching in your lane so she went to shift over her handlebar hit the actual garbage can and so yeah yeah yeah so maybe i can ask martha the one i've heard in his life yeah i had a conversation with martha around the um

you know, trash pick up in town, litter pick up in town. She mentioned that she said she's in Vermont this weekend. Vermont is where she is this week. She said the town she visits, they do something called like Green Days where the townsfolk get together and they pick up trash.

I've seen them here in town too. I've seen them picking Route 1 over. I've seen them picking up there a couple years ago. I don't know how often that happens. Green Day or something like that.

She seemed really interested in the possibility of doing a talent-organized volunteer group.

If you're going to, are you going to be in touch with the cycle coordinator again, do you think?

Well, I found out Quincy, the committee chair, is a good friend of mine. I have a background with her son. We went to high school together.

But one option also would be, and might be a local business for businesses sponsor sections of road to keep them clean and they get to put up a sign.

Yeah, that was an idea that they proposed last night where there could be some sort of sponsorship. Yeah, there's no real money for it in town budget currently. So it'd have to be a volunteer thing. You need a litter sticker to pick them up.

You need a strip fabric vest to wear them and

Yeah, the other challenge is like, if we do have, you know, children, like high school students, Boy Scouts, whomever, the issue of safety, like the long, narrow roadways, like why do these types of people drive really fast? And one of these two really are the only roads in question, like Townlands Road, Grassy Hill Road are like roads that we've spoken about where people aren't speeding, that are used by people who commute to and from work, you know, by automobile. Those folks, for whatever reason, are also some of the ones who are, you know, are prone to throwing whatever out the car. But it seems like it's sort of a visual action, but sort of repeat that.

Well, I appreciate you meeting with them and looking into it, you know. Yeah. Let us know, you know. We do have very clean town, generally. Yeah. I wanted to get into the regular committee bills that I have done, one of which is membership, so. Michael Fox has not attended sometime. I've written to him twice, including probably a week and a half ago, asking, Michael, are you interested in staying on the committee or not? And he's never written back to me. So one of the things I've been told as the chair for, not this committee, but for another one, is if you have members that are not participating, Tom would prefer that they not be on the committee. If anybody knows Michael and wants to reach out to him and say, hey, do you want to be down here? Otherwise, if it's, I'm inclined to tell Mark that he has not attended a meeting in at least six or eight months.

He's been here since I've been here. What's that? He's not been here since I got.

Yeah. So basically, you know, eventually, you know, I hope we can get some more people to sit on the committee and, you know, really doesn't help us to have a spot held by somebody who is, who is,

He didn't contact you, though, and let you know he wouldn't be attending?

Yeah, well, no.

Any of those?

He has not written to me. I've not heard from him in a year. A long time.

How many spots are there on this committee?

Twelve?

Too many.

Really?

Because I was very surprised that, like, a couple of ways for cycling, there were more people there, including myself.

It's because initially it was set up like the town was split into sections and there were supposed to be two representatives from each section, which I think is why it's such a big committee. But that sort of fell by the wayside.

We'll talk about that at the end of the meeting. But the other thing I wanted to ask you is this. We skipped a meeting, but things went on between June and now. Does anybody have any thoughts about whether she can meet monthly or meet bi-monthly? You don't need to answer, but you might want to think about that. We can address that at the next meeting.

I don't think it's bad. I mean, my personal opinion, because it's only that hour thing, we literally have to get kicked out. Most commissions meet for a longer period of time. Right. So, I mean, I can go with that.

Okay. I would say leave it monthly because sometimes you're going to have to reschedule or postpone for one reason or another anyway.

The only one maybe, like I say, is, you know, just don't do what July 1 or something like that.

Just figure it out. I mean, it's a tough time of the year, you know, and Danielle has written that she wanted to attend and there was an issue. And Rosemary said she wants to be on the committee. She is still in town. although she says she's moved, but I didn't hear from her. I also know that she and her husband travel internationally a bit, so she may not be in the country.

I can update you on that offline if you want.

I don't need to know. We don't need to know where she is.

I don't think she'll be attending until September.

Okay. So I just wanted to mention two different things. I sent you all an image, and if anybody happens to be in the vicinity, you take a look by it. Brighton Road, the speed humps and the signage, I think, came out really well. And I know the residents were really, really happy to have that done.

I didn't hit on that. We actually had a fire alarm down the road. Yeah. And I'm driving down like, yep, they're here. And honestly, I'm not a huge speed bump guy. They're actually not that bad in the fire truck. Yeah. You know, you hit them smoothly. I thought they were nice down there. I think it's the perfect room for them.

Yeah. You know, even better, Ken, is that... somebody from public births was there when Tom Montana installed them. They saw how they're put in. They will take them up in the fall and re-put them back in the spring. So they won't be an issue when it goes cloud. And the beach club is closed in the winter, so it's not an issue all around.

I definitely think even town-wide, if we're to do more or even another beach association, the wider ones, because the transition is a lot smoother. Those are who are in a Bible meeting. They just beat you up.

Well, some of the ones with white stands.

Some of the white stands are pretty... Oh, yeah, because they're so short.

The ones on Brighton Road are nice. Yeah, they're very nice. What's the speed limit there? 15 miles or 20 miles? Did we reduce it then? Did we vote to have it reduced to 15 miles? I don't know right now. Or is it still 20 miles? It's still 20. It's 20 miles.

It was interesting because one of the gentlemen that came here and met specifically asked that the speed limit be reduced. And that was part of the petition that was signed, that the speed limit be reduced. So I made that one of the points that this committee requested to the Board of Slotmen. And he followed me in addressing them. He says, we don't need to change the speed limit. And I don't think that John Meesham went along with it anyway. John thought, that difference is not going to make much difference. If we're going to put in speed humps, they're going to be more effective. And I think they are. So also, I want to continue on. So Ken had talked about dangerous intersections of town. One was by copies of Route 1. The other was your Dead Man's Curve, where Route 1 meets Four Mile River Road, and the other was McCurdy at 156. I asked Martha if she had any idea DOT was doing something, she did not. Now, I contacted Rob Harambeau, who's the traffic safety coordinator at Rivercock. He's got a pretty good relationship with DOT. He said that Rivercock, when they were putting together the regional safety plan, looked at the segment of Route 1 between Boggy Hole and Poundwoods Road, and they had a couple recommendation. They said that we should check to see how reflective the signs are, if there's speed limit signs, and if they're not reflective, to replace them. So in that regard, a couple months ago, Martha asked me if it's a retroreflectometer.

Yeah, it's a newer model. Yeah, yeah.

So there's two versions, two two devices. I'm not sure if one can do both or you need two, but one checks how reflective signs are and the other checks how the roadway signs, roadway lines are. And I said, Martha is interested in doing it. I said, Martha, you know, you don't have to do that. You're busy. No, that would be relaxing me to go out and do that. Nope, not good enough. That's one thing we can do. The other thing she mentioned and Rob mentioned also is maybe trying to do some type of coordination with coffees because people, I've been going by it and people back right out onto Route 1. That's the worst.

That's like the intersection in Townwood.

Yeah.

I mean, we get them a couple times there, but realistically, it's more the coffee market.

I always need like a stoplight or something. Yeah.

I don't know if like, I'm like, all right, do we put signs up where like, if you, let's just say creatively, put like a flashing sign on the sign. Yeah. congested areas like that, but it's during a certain time frame, because like 9 o'clock at night is not that bad, but 9 o'clock in the morning is brutal, you know?

Isn't it more of a fact that the opening into Coffey's parking lot...

I think that definitely has a lot to do with it. Yeah, so people are just... Yeah, so you're right. It is quite watched.

I think a redesign that is a much... would be the most effective.

I know that parking can be quite tight there at times. But one of the issues is there are some spots that are right in front of the building. And really, you have to be a somewhat careful driver when you're backing up and doing it. Especially if you're backing up and going back towards town, that you don't back into the roadway.

So just a thought. So I think the rule is when you come to an intersection road, I think it's 30 feet, 30 feet for visibility-wise. So no matter how wide that intersection is. So if you pull out of the coffee market towards support, like there's one parking spot that's literally like right at the curb. Maybe, which I mean, I know it's one parking spot and that one parking spot over 15 minutes of a half hour fills up Austin. But like if we could get them almost tested where they block that one parking spot. So my personal opinion, I think what's happened is whether, however wide the place is, they're pulling out because of that one bar, especially at the pickup truck, it's a blind spot. So now you're nosing out. I, my personal opinion might be that one spot might be affecting a lot of the, because they can't see down the road. And now they're trying to shoot in front of it. Most accidents that I go to, they seem like they're leaving Coffey's Market versus hitting the, if you call it the North Valley, heading that way. That seems like It's the northbound that's more the issue versus the southbound, if that makes sense. If you're leaving town, let's take a right. It seems like it's more the northbound. I'm not saying we don't, we definitely get them on the other side too, but it seems like it's more the caucus market when they're coming out and they get people. Because sometimes they just, I mean, we had an incident a month ago where this kid drove into the parking lot and hit a car. In the parking lot, I don't know what it was.

I was saying it's true of that parallel space that they have. um on the hardware store side that's like parallel to the gas pumps like oh yes they're there like yeah there's a contractor type guy parked there a large fan it's impossible to see like you need to go out with the lighting absolutely so I don't know if you don't know what the cause of the accident but is it speeding or is it something I don't think combination you know I definitely think it's you know the speed side the crosswalk one I don't know if you guys travel that road at night often

The crosswalk ones, honestly, bright as hell because it's a new technology signs. It's almost too bright where it draws your eyes away from the road. So if there's somebody actually in the crosswalk, the sign itself is drawing your eye over there. So you may not see the crosswalk. The crosswalks, they're near Haynes Park. There's like two crosswalks there. And the signs, because they get the whole, they get the sign, and then they get the post sign, reflective and bright. I saw it in an image. It's so freaking bright. Like if somebody was actually in the crosswalk, you probably wouldn't see it because your headlight would be fucked off the sign so much.

Do you think a yellow flashing light would be a help, Ken? Honestly, it's not the issue of the people walking across. This would be a flashing light basically for cars to slow down.

I think it's more of that. quality market yeah yeah i mean we get a couple at town woods every once in a while people and stuff like that um we don't really get a lot we had one pretty crazy one uh kind of in front of zelex electric like dancing to heen's park we had one there that was he was a distracted driver he would have said that i looked down for a second head on into a car can i ask a question about pedestrian crosswalks sure um i don't know if any of you have been in niantic not main street

perpendicular one is that Flanders or yeah Flanders Pennsylvania the little flags yeah and I feel like I know that a lot of times there's not the budget for stuff people are unwilling to spend money but reflective flags with little bins on either side of the intersections at Lake Poundwoods and stuff that's a cheap thing to keep pedestrians safe crossing the road if the reflective surface of the road is such that you're having difficulty seeing people in the crosswalk.

So you don't get a lot of people at night crossing that road that I've seen over the years of driving. It's mainly like first thing in the morning, you've got the crew people, the high schoolers, or mostly the high schoolers coming back and forth when they get to the event. That's all during the day. So at night, it's usually not much of it. That's why I didn't bring that up. At night, it's usually not much of it.

See, one of the issues with that road among other roads in town is the town doesn't have authority over Route 1. And DOT is, I wouldn't say they're unresponsive. They move at a different pace. And I'll get into that a little later. I asked Rod Harriman, would you consider yellow flashing lights that kind of warn people that this could be a dangerous intersection or a dangerous area. He said DOT really is switching away from that. They don't care to use those. They prefer to use, maybe it's the thing that you were talking about, HAWC, we already called high-intensity activator crosswalk signals that pedestrian activate.

Oh, I think that's similar to like on the Art Academy. Oh, yeah. Sorry, down there on Lyman Street. Yeah.

But he said, Martha could, as the local authority, could ask them to consider some type of signage in there. So even some kind of warning sign, you need to go to DOP. Oh, yeah, they are.

And again, they're regional. All the signs that you hear, they're out of... Where do they come from? They come down here.

You're talking about two different locations of... Now you're speaking about by Rogers Lake and also by Coffees, right? Two different locations, right? Are you talking about the crosswalk?

Yeah, there's two different areas. Yes. The crosswalk side that I know of, I haven't talked to anyone from the crew side of it. Like, hey, do you guys have problems crossing the road? The ones you got to watch out for in the springtime to get to the east across the road. But yes, the intersection, the main intersection I'm more concerned about would be the Coffees section, if you want to call it that. Would the state put a crosswalk there? I don't think people like to form cars.

Yeah, I know it's not. I mean, rather than crosswalk.

I'm not an engineer, and Martha's sent me information about who they want courses, but I'm not inclined to go to it. And generally, they're soft bears, nowhere near hair. But in any event, if there's like a sign that has flashing lights, Slow down or whatever.

I was wondering, like, a congested area or something like that, where, like, certain times of the day, it would be activated, like, as cars come up. I was actually up in upstate New York last week, and there's a straightaway that's a straight, it's a four-way intersection. And you have the right-of-way, there's not, like, a traffic light, but there's actually signs that start blinking as soon as a car approaches. A car at an intersection. So it tells you the four ways. There's lights that blink you to warn you, like, you better slow down or you gotta stop.

let's do this ken would you be willing to meet with uh martha and i and maybe somebody from copies i think martha would be a bit would be interested in doing that because i mentioned coffee she's you don't know how many calls i get from people yeah like i said in the media as much as you hate to lose them apart and like those two or three spots they

being able to see. I mean, the first step is just to talk to them.

The other spot that, well, the other two spots you mentioned were the Dead Man's Curve and McCurdy. The state is doing nothing for that.

Yeah, I assumed they wouldn't be.

Interesting. When I talked about how the state has their own schedule, He did, I asked him, maybe at your request, Sophie, if they were doing any work on 156. He said, the state does have plans for the Mile Creek Smith Neck Route 156 intersection. It's DOT project blank, blank. They're going to install pedestrian actuated rectangular rapid flashing beacon system. The project is currently in the planning phase, has an anticipated final design date of September 8, 2027, and they expect the project to go out to bid for construction sometime in 2028. So I'm not quite sure why that would take well over a year, but that's...

It's even longer than that because Martha told us that they were working on it last October.

That's correct. Yeah. So that's where we're at with that. Okay, I wanted to also, John's waiting for this, to talk about the speed feedback signs. First of all, the town, if you want to jot this down, John, the town sent check number 937862 traffic logic on July 21st to pay for cloud access for two years. 937862. 937862 on 7-21. So I hope that we have the cloud access now that you might want to check with them on that. We had talked about putting up a sign on Palmwoods Road. We also talked about putting a sign on 156, both spots that were flagged by UConn. So One of the issues is you have to put the speed feedback signs on an official regulatory sign. And in the area, well, first of all, I think an area that has a more serious speeding issue is basically where the railroad driveway is. But there are not many signs in that section. We're not even granted telephone poles for UConn to put their radar counter, which I'd like to have them do. But the other section, I have a little bit to the east of Button Mall. There are two traffic signs on 156. One heading, I guess, eastbound is predominantly in the shade all day long. I've gone by that a couple times. The other on the westbound heading towards 95 is pretty sunny. Martha, I completed, drew up an application that Martha submitted, 7272 for an encroachment permit for DOT. And because that particular sign is behind guardrails, we don't need to change the sign or put a breakaway sign on it. And we shall see when we hear from DOT on that. This is the sign that's going toward 95? Yes. Yeah, it's a 40-mile speed. It's behind the guardrail. Pretty much in the sun. Is that the one that you had flagged on? So we have two locations for signs. I had asked Martha back in July if Public Works could work with John to at least put the one up on Conquist Road. I was told that Ed was too busy getting ready for mid-summer, and now they're too busy doing mowing and everything else, people on vacation, so it's a little bit frustrating. She knows that we want to put that sign up, John. And maybe, I don't know, I guess we can put that up on... 156 when we get the okay for it. You had also sent me an image, John, of the sign on 30. Do you think that needs to be moved? Do you think it's too shady there? Or it's not, wasn't installed properly?

Yeah, they're really, I'd say two out of three of them aren't installed optimally. They're functioning of the solar panels really should be relatively high and angled, right? So they should be down to like 56 degrees. For instance, the one that's on McCurdy Road is angled the wrong way, and it's on the opposite side of the road sign, the speed limit sign. So it's more in the shade by doing that, and it also is in somewhat of a shaded area. So that one's the case there. The one that's on Lime Street right here actually is on a speed limit sign. It's on a sign that has some some uh directional turn offs for the swole or something like that but there's a few other signs before and after it um and the one on Sill Lane that was installed with a panel and then a telephone pole utility pole right behind it so on the south side so really you want the panel facing south it's not magnetic south but it's what's called true south which is found by the exact time between sunrise and sunset. That's where the solar, except for solar. Anyway, so true south, let's say you have a sign going north and south, right? So the sign's facing north and south. If the sun's going east to west and it comes up and it goes over, whether it's the middle of the year or, you know, the times where the sun is lower, you want the panel angled that direction, right? if you turn the sign, so now you're heading the other direction, east and west, right? The position of how that panel mounts on the pole or what TrafficLogix would recommend is really a round post because now the sign can be clamped, the panel can be clamped on and be turned to whatever position it needs to be to be directed towards the sun, where the regular utility sign poles that are driven in, you know, they just have that zigzag shape. You can't really mount to the side. But I haven't talked to Traffic Logics about that. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I would like to talk to Martha, too. Somebody may have mentioned, and I forgot who it was, that that sign is really at a point where the road takes a little bit of a turn. That's me. And it would be more effective to move down closer to Shore Road.

Either down closer to Shore Road or closer to the cemetery. Either one of the straightaways on McCurdy is where people are speeding.

So when we start getting into these signs, I'll ask her if as a traffic authority she could have that sign moved. And if we could get it on a straightaway and then remount it properly. And on a straightaway, As I recall, there might be some pine trees or something, but there's more sun, too, as you get closer to the shore road.

You said in direction, what way you're traveling, where the sun is in relationship to the trees.

Was that part of the marsh at one point, like across from the marsh, like where Duck River Lane is?

I don't know. Yeah, like years ago, because speeding was so bad, they put that one that they had that they could move around. Yeah, they put that one there for a couple of months in the opposite direction, but that was, like, if you're doing crumb lines, yeah, so that they had it there for a while, but they haven't had one there, and I have no idea about any data that was collected from there.

Well, that's, like, one of the straightaways that we're mentioning, right?

Yeah, and that's definitely, I mean, something that I was curious about is if this the committee, we could sort of recommend to the town that they maybe talk to the churches about people speeding to service because one of, and in John's data, you can even see the spike by when people are trying to make it to service on time. And I feel like maybe if someone there could just tell them, it's okay, you don't need to speed to get there, you can be a little late.

And when we're saying that corners and signs where the positions are. That's the same type of thing with my road is that where the corners are, that's where the speed limit signs seem to be. And people slow down there and there's arrows warning you and everything else, but on the straightaway.

Yeah, I have to confess, I had no idea how locations I've selected for signs. I'm not even sure. Yeah. And not even sure that the local traffic authority, I don't know, maybe, you know, I'm not going to, criticize public works, but it's possible that it just . Like everything else in this field, I would be shocked if there's not some type of guidance or recommendation for proper placement.

They actually, I can ask my sign guides, Mark, just curiosity and what the, you know, because I know certain roads, like it needs to be a certain size, you know, and like you said, the reflectivity, I mean, the ones up on the Irwin roads probably are pretty old. I don't know. Are they small ones? I think they replaced them.

I think they replaced them lately, but I'm not sure. You haven't got signs on your road yet, have you? I think just the signs that existed. I think they might have replaced with more reflective signs.

I was told that new signs were original. Additional signs.

Not additional signs, but I'm saying those signs that are there, I believe they were better replaced with reflective ones.

And they didn't put more signs.

Do you think the signs that are there are properly placed? At least not in the straightaways. And those same type of thing where we're talking about the installation of the speed warning signs and being on or near those or whatever the rule is with it. So that should really help us find locations where those would work, right? If we just install the sign somewhere and then there's no sign, that doesn't help us either even the warning sign.

about that when we get back. So the other thing that John mentioned is to come up with, when it was confirmed, we have cloud access to come up with a report for what the free town owned or the town purchase signs that don't have UConn access. What reports we'll provide to this committee and also to both Lisa and Mark. What I'd like to do before, you were going to throw up a user account. I'm not sure Derek is going to want his guys spending time going online funding reports, but let's talk to him. You and I meet with Derek. It was my impression that he wanted the corporate to do that. and he didn't want to be involved in that personally. But let's talk to him and see.

It's not something that's super complex. Yeah, yeah. We can do it. I think we've made it pretty quick. But we can set up someone else to be around to see him. Yeah, I think probably if anyone wants to see it.

Yeah, I think it'd be like, here, give me the data about that versus that. I'm going to pull that up.

It's not that difficult to do. No, but they're binding. But the thing about, well, they're not, right? But the thing is, they can pull what they want out of it, too. So if they have specific concerns about time of days with, well, is it around church? Is it here? Is it there? They can use that. They can refine it and check whatever they want if they have that.

I'm going to ask Yukon if they can set up their speed radar counters again. around town and I've been told they're inclined to do so. Three sites that came to mind were the section of Route 156, again, where there's a long straightaway and the railroad bridge driveway is there, that stretch of 156. I thought about putting one of our signs there, but we were not able to because a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit, which exists on that section of road, requires a bigger sign than we have. so we would have had to swap out a sign. That would have been just usable there. The other spot would be, I know Danielle's talked about Four Mile River Road, and then possibly your road or Grassy Hill. Does anybody have any thoughts on what we should ask UConn?

Grassy Hill. Grassy Hill? Yeah.

That's a good one. Which one? Talcott Woods Road, along the straightaway there.

We're going to put one out there. That's so insulated. On the side of the road, the senior center is out, between the senior center and Route 1.

There's also that long straightaway on Route 56 before you get to Lyme, in between Talcott Farm Road, Tamahag Road. There used to be a police officer that would sit in the driveway there, but that's a private residence. Yeah, people go faster against long, straight, flat.

Yeah. Yeah, we definitely have our share once or twice a year, that curve. And the hanky. Yeah.

And the Saunders South Road, the straightaway, there's no speed limit signs there to mount them to now, so that would have to happen first.

I think the last of the roads that were popular in the survey that we don't have any data for yet is Grassy Hill, though. Because I remember that Grassy Hill was mentioned quite frequently in the survey.

I agree with you.

And I think it was in our conversation last year that because they weren't sure with the whole bridge project, that's why they were kind of holding off on it. But I haven't heard anything about the bridge project.

Sorry that Danielle is not here because I wish she would advocate it. What are your thoughts on Formal River Road? I don't think it's a bad idea.

It wouldn't hurt, absolutely.

Isn't there a portion of Forma River that's the state? So it can't be on that portion?

I think it's only the overpass, I would say.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I think it's just the overpass.

So then we can put it anywhere else.

I would think so. Because they don't maintain anything else on that river.

I actually didn't realize that it has property on both sides when you go north of 95th.

Yeah, because I'm pretty sure, I don't think, yeah, the town plows, like the state doesn't plow that road at all. But I think for maintenance-wise, they take care of the bridge side of it.

It's interesting, the town has property on that side of the road. The town also has property somewhat adjacent to that within the town of Eastline. I think we own about five or ten acres in Eastline.

Like land trust?

What's that? It's undeveloped land. I'm not sure how the town came to acquire it. But a developer asked Martha one time if she wanted to sell it to him. And she asked me, she says, open spaces.

I didn't even know he had it in there. And he never pursued it. Yeah, I think on the northern side, heading out towards Route 1, I think we owned almost the stream, what was it, Fort Myer River? I think it's Fort Myer River that runs through the woods. I think we owned that. One of my captains in the firehouse lives in the east line side, up on the hill. and he wants to buy the property, so he actually just had the accident, but, like, don't want to repeat that.

Do they have anything, like, on the Mile Creek side of town, like, further east towards the Eastland?

Well, we did have, are you talking about land, or are you talking about speed signs?

No, I'm talking about speed signs.

So there was one, because the Mile Creek School was such an issue, there was a sign there for a while,

last year but that got moved and never replaced i don't know where they put that one and obviously i don't think that people have slowed down by the school at all and again kind of like you see it's that straight shot if you come from let's say this way that straight shot before the curb i would say that's more of a hazard than the opposite corner because that the opposite way is more like an s kind of slows it down a little bit more so like you said that's a straight shot before the curb

I just wonder, too, if we have a limited number of signs, like putting them all sort of on these roads that just travel to, like, the line, like, travel north. I don't know if that would skew it in some way. Like, if we were to go on the other side of town, that should actually... From your outside, though, knowing that there's signs, there are designated areas where you just have to keep changing.

So let's say we did 30 days here, did 30 days over here. You know, we have them, so instead of... Within 30 days, you'd be able to figure out what you're doing.

And you let me know. Well, 60 days. Well, you then change around to another spot. You could if, if, you know, if you're under the assumption that everything's the same one month to, you know, this July, during the holidays, it's different than another time of year, right?

Yeah, right now, technically, Mount Creek would be a good one, because you only have to walk a little versus in a month, you got all the kids can drop off. So the time frame, what do you want it to be?

Well, one of the things we had talked about, Ken, and Rosemary had started to look into this, was some type of traffic calming device, which Martha's rules really can, even if it's just painting the roadway, slow down or whatever. I remember that, yeah. So that's something we can look into that. I wanted to, the last portion of the meeting.

Can I ask a question? What's around painting the road? What's that? Around painting the road. Can I ask a question there?

Okay.

So I think this is in live. But on Grassy Hill, in big white letters, since paint's slow on the road, is you had a, like, up Grassy Hill itself. Do we know anything about that? Was that just, like, some resident who? I have no idea. It's for sure not, like, DOT, you know, stencils.

That's just, like, a photo. I'll try to drive by there and take a look at it.

I'll take a picture. I asked you about earlier. So just for the week of 8-3 through 8-9. This is just a quick overview. So the location for Sill Lane, the speed limit's 25, well, all three signs are. So the count of traffic was 1,747. The violation percentage was 81%. But if I look at it with 10 miles an hour over, so 36 and up, 335. And the max speed was 50 miles an hour between 12 and 1 p.m. and 7 and 8 p.m. There was 50 miles an hour on both of those. Lyme Street, of course, running what, five miles an hour again also. 72, 68 for the count. So the violations were 86%. Again, the 10 mile an hour over, 36 or more were 676. The max speed, 54. 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. McCurdy Road, 25 mile an hour. The vehicle count, 34 to 18. The average violations were 92. The 10 mile an hour over 36 plus was 681, only about five different than Lime Street, so we're at the road, right? So the count there for the violations over 36 was almost identical.

and the speed was max speed was 52, and that's 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. Can you send that to me and send it to the committee chairman to look at those things again while I'm trying to copy? Mm-hmm.

The only other thing to say is what we were talking about, that every court user or police can do that is the more current they have that, if they're wanting to look at something and see if we have something to give it to them, then they look at it in a month.

Yeah, well, let's make a note of that. Let's bring it up in our conversation. So I wanted to talk a little bit about automatic traffic safety devices, the speed cameras. So I realize I've been kind of a broken record on this. On the other hand, I have been polled on a couple of occasions that that is an issue that management would like us to look at with the expectation that that is really one of the few improvements that we're fiscally able to make to cut down on speeding. We have clearly an issue with expanding the number of police officers in town.

We have some... A new one was just hired, no? What's that?

We just hired a new officer in town? We did, but again, we don't have enough to even do one o'clock covers. We rely on the two from midnight to the morning.

Yeah.

And I understand that if someone is actually arrested for a serious crime, one of the officers has to bring them to Troop F. That basically puts that person out of town for two hours at a shop.

How many police officers do we have?

Yeah, we have seven. They want to get to nine or something. And then there was a point in the 70s or 80s when the old line had Well, the police think that it's wonderful and we should go back to that many officers.

The other issue I've been told is one of the times where, again, subjectively, it seems we have the most speeding in town is on weekends, Fridays and Sundays, when people are coming and going to the beach. And that's when police officers often are required down in the beach communities to deal with issues down there. And again, that pulls them away from VML to do traffic enforcement. So anyway, that's something that I think the committee will need to address. However, we're at a very interesting point that I want to spend a few minutes talking about with this whole issue. I sent you some information. So governor of Vermont basically asked any town that's thinking about going to speed camera enforcement should pause. He wrote to the Police Chief's Council on Standards that he asked them to look into that, that he would like them to investigate the various camera and license plate reader technologies in use and the statutory framework for the use of these technologies, look at Connecticut law requirements for permissible use of the data collected for such devices, including how long the data may be stored, how it may be used, and how it may or may not be shared outside of the purview of local and state authorities. He wanted to look into data confidentiality provisions of the state law, and also recommends that policies be recommended for use of that. So I think one of the things that's happening, there's a backlash on cameras, but I think that's kind of being mind in people's minds with the use of the flat hammers, which are really become controversial. So it's interesting. Someone wrote to me maybe a month ago saying, when did Old Lime start ticketing cars with speed cam enforcement? He didn't. He said, well, look on Facebook. So I looked on Facebook and there were about 12 comments. Watch out, Old Lime is ticketing cars. It was actually on I-95 East Lime. to the Flanders Bridge product where the state started thinking about that.

There have also been, like, there was a news article that came out in the CT Examiner saying that we were going to decide on speed cameras, like, by summertime, which I actually wrote to Greg Stroud saying, like, I'm on the committee, like, to my knowledge, this is not true.

I did talk to a reporter at the Examiner, right? I didn't give them a timeframe because I knew.

But I just think like there's, when there's sort of all this commotion going on on social media, like sort of keyboard warriors going at it, like there's bound to be misinformation and disinformation around. It's not Facebook, it's true.

So I wanted to mention two things in that regard. So one is that Lime has decided against camera use and, they at one point were interested in participating in this committee. They've stepped back from that, but John Evans had first select woman contact Martha and said that he would like to meet regularly with Derek to talk about how they could coordinate issues. And I guess I didn't realize it, but I guess we have a sign that he thinks they have partial ownership of. It might be the one that's by the police station that talks about saving water now. He said he was under the impression that Blaine could use that part, you know, 50% of the time. That's not my issue.

Talking about the flood. No, this is the sign that's... Are you talking about the flood cameras or the other... No, I'm talking about a display sign.

that it's not a trail, it just has messages.

No, no, I'm asking, you said they don't want to use cameras.

No, no, no, they're not going to apply for speed camera enforcement. They passed up that. And so one of the, I think, the more aggressive proponents of speed camera enforcement is Chief Costa in Middletown, who I've spoken to a couple of times. He used, I believe he was once a commanding officer at True Path, and he's going to Middletown. They have, I think, a huge number of violations in town. One of the things he wanted to do was get a drone that was going to be for basically emergency rescue things. If somebody was in the river or whatever, they could find out exactly where. Someone said somebody's drowning on the river. They could have the drone exactly where that was. And that was basically turned down by the mayor because there was so much complain about it. I think a typical comment was one person said, I could see the utilitarian use of that, but I'm not sure what else they would capture when they have a drone flying over my house.

That's not a good priority at that point. A lot of departments now are starting to use drones for emergency use.

And there's been some back and forth, actually. I think that someone from the Business Chiefs Association actually wrote in the examiner, talking about the utility of license plate breeders. And on the other hand, I think I may have sent you, it could have been just today, a column that Kevin Rennie, who I used to deal with a lot when he was chair of the Transportation Committee, wrote. He's a columnist for the Hartford Courier. He wrote last Sunday about basically Big Brother checking everything you do. And he specifically mentioned the speed enforcement cameras and the license plate readers cameras. So that's a big issue. And my own thought is I thank Sophie for bringing a lot of the privacy issues to mind. And I think we really need to be concerned about what happens to a lot of this data. I don't think many people in the state I'm not going to take a decision on this one data being given to the federal government or whatever for uses that are not safety related. But my own thought is that basically the horse has gotten out of the barn as far as privacy goes. You go to a city like Hartford, there's cameras everywhere. People post on Facebook, I have a niece that's traveling right now. You know, people say, don't tell people when you're out of the country, but she's posting 25 images every day of her travel in Spain. So I think that's an issue. So basically.

So, so anyway, so, so,

The governor asked that towns basically pause their requests two days before he issued that order. Stanford put a request for 14 speed enforcement cameras around town, all by school sessions. So it's an issue that's evolving and we'll have to just kind of track what's going on. I have just about five minutes. One of the things I wanted to do and I was hoping Martha would be here, and I hope we can meet with her in September, is to just kind of talk about where this committee is heading. I think I mentioned last time that, as Sophie mentioned, I think the original intent was that we serve as kind of conduits from our neighborhoods into town government and talk about what we felt were some safety issues in our neighborhoods, issues that our neighbors and friends may have may believe existed and pass those on. For convenience sake, we are possibly being positioned to be more of a permanent agency that's going to maybe be more than a recommendation agency. And that includes, for example, this committee researching and indirectly paying for the speed pumps on Brighton Road for John actually being the maintainer of the speed feedback cameras in terms of installing them, make sure they're working properly and doing the data and so forth. And maybe that's something we want to do, but what I would ask each of you to do is before we meet in September, just kind of think, what do you think is an appropriate role for this committee Should we get into that? Should we go back to what it was initially conceived as? And again, we've had surveys or whatever. What are the issues going forward maybe from now until the end of the year that you think this committee should really try to address? One of the things that I think is really hindering this committee, something that Jared Obachi mentioned, Early on is that none of us really have any type of traffic engineering background. The town relies on attorneys and auditors and whatever. I think it would really be helpful if the town had a traffic engineer that we had an issue with. So we had some issues at coffees in Route 1. He or she would know, well, in other towns, these are the things you could do. rather than us just coming up with really a non-professional recommendation.

We had talked to Martha about that before, and again, because no one ever wants to spend any money, she suggested that we find a retired traffic engineer who happens to live in town.

That was one of the things I asked her, and that was one of the things I asked her, and that's one of the reasons I asked you about Michael Fox. I want to strongly recommend to her that There, I know there's multiple retired police officers in town. I would like, it would be wonderful to have someone on this committee with a police perspective. It would be someone with an engineering perspective, maybe a former DOT employee or whatever. Ken, you're terrific. I love your expertise. And we lucked out with John with his IT perspective. Bradley, being able to bring this perspective of bicyclists, so be it from the So we have a good base in the community, but I'd like to add a few more areas of knowledge to the community, I think would really help it. And I think it's gonna have to be kind of reach out to someone, tap them on the shoulder, hey, would you like to be on this committee, as opposed to just putting out a call, would you like to volunteer?

When you asked about, was it Michael Fox, and how many of the members there are, either having shown or don't show up, Does that affect the number we require for a quorum?

In other words, if there's so many... Well, we have eight members now, and I checked, and I was told by Becky Berberowitz that five is the quorum.

Yeah, you have three vacancies, not including Michael.

And does that change if we add more members or less?

Yeah. The quorum's going to change, right? Yeah, because it's just a majority. And even if someone is listed as a committee member, but does not attend meetings, they're still included in the count.

And this committee is also a little bit different than many of the ABCs and agencies, boards, commissions in that everybody is a full member, where many of the other committees will have seven voting members in all candidates.

And then, I mean, I guess, let's say there's, For people that's on Zoom, does that count?

Because technically on Zoom, so they actually have- If three of you were on Zoom, but you were at the meeting, that would be a quarrel.

So do they- They have voting power.

Then like with us, if we do a Teams meeting, if you're on Teams for a firehouse, you're not eligible for voting. That's how our department works.

Not a town government unit.

No, I'm sure open space, which means tomorrow, and

one of our members had a knee replacement he's going to be on camera i'm also potentially getting surgery on my knee so i'm my knee are you getting replaced no i call my meniscus my mcl over repaired i wish you luck with that i don't i just went to the doctor yesterday i caught two months ago but my meniscus is not healing so

Well, that's all I have now. But I just wanted to go over and thank you all for attending the meeting. And I hope we can get kind of some clarity on where we're going to go in the future next month. I think that's what we need. I really encouraged Martha to attend. I was really hopeful she could attend this meeting. And you, she and I maybe will talk to Coffey's and John.

His name's also Ken.

Yeah.

Ken Coffey. Yeah, my family was really good friends.

Oh, yeah, they're great people. You and I will talk to Derek. And if you could check on the cloud access, we're good to go and I'll let you know as soon as we hear from DOT. I'm not expecting.

And then the town is, well, the town is busy, but then they're still busy and next month we'll see what happens again.

Yeah. I work with that a lot. I get along well. I did a big favor for another commissioner where we had beavers that clogged the culvert going under Whippoorwill Road from an open space. Yeah, yeah. the water was backing up behind people's backyards who live on Whirlpool Road. I paid $5,000 for a guy to come in there and water that out. And Ed mows properties for me, so we do each other favors. I have a good relationship with him, but Ed can be a little gruff.

Yeah.

Well, shall we make a motion to adjourn? We can probably do that. All in favor? What time did you have, Jessica?

7.02.

Great. Well, thank you all.