Town officials last week approved a $10,000 contract with a New Haven-based company to help complete plans for a long-desired pedestrian route across Route 123 near downtown New Canaan.
The Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting March 21 voted unanimously in favor of the contract with Fuss & O’Neill (https://www.fando.com/)
.
The company is helping the town “navigate through the traffic signal updates that have to be done with the state” for the area of Route 123 at Brushy Ridge Road/Locust Avenue, according to Tiger Mann, New Canaan’s director of public works.
“We have been working on it for several years, to enhance the pedestrian improvements there,” Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. “We have a sidewalk on River Street. We have a sidewalk on Locust. But we don’t have a way to cross. There are actually pedestrian heads there, meaning that you can actually press the buttons. But the buttons are actually behind the guide rail and inaccessible from the sidewalk. That wasn’t our design. That was a state design.”
Asked whether the work outlined in the work is expected to fix the problem, Mann said yes.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted in favor of the contract.
They asked Mann when the work would be completed (hopefully by the end of this construction season) and when in the calendar year that is(November).
“I wanted it two years ago,” Mann said.
Residents have been calling (https://newcanaanite.com/residents-call-for-safety-measures-at-complicated-locust-avenue-route-123-intersection-28529)
for improvements to the crossing for at least eight years. Since then, the town has reached (https://newcanaanite.com/state-town-agree-to-co-fund-re-design-of-difficult-locust-avenue-123-intersection-33853) an agreement with the state about sharing the cost of updating the intersection. Town officials say a new pedestrian crossing will cross Route 123 on the north side of the intersection, with a separate crossing across Locust Avenue west of Summer Street.
Mann said that he doesn’t expect Fuss & O’Neill to need to use all $10,000 of the newly approved funds in order to obtain an encroachment permit from the state.
Copyright 2023 New Canaanite