No one disagrees that when Route 7 was widened 20-something years ago, there was no consideration for how that corridor would grow, both in commerce and in the number of vehicles traveling it daily. If it were widened today, it would certainly never look the way it does now.
So what’s the process to make it a safer route?
A couple of basics. Route 7 runs through multiple towns, which gives those municipalities input on safety measures. It also puts on those towns the primary responsibility for starting any process for rehab or change, beyond basic paving and line maintenance. But Route 7 is also both a state and a federal highway, which makes it a multi-layered process.
In Ridgefield, we were farther ahead than most of our neighbors on the Route 7 corridor in taking the right steps to gather all the information needed to make it safer. There’s a very specific process for that. The local traffic authority, who in our case is Ridgefield Chief of Police Jeff Kreitz, must work through the Connecticut Department of Transportation to officially request a study. That was done roughly two years ago, and it stalled when the state DOT had to seek out new engineering contractors.
After the fatality just north of us in Danbury this summer, I worked to get Danbury to join our conversation, and they did so willingly and immediately.
The Ridgefield portion of the traffic study has now been returned to Chief Kreitz, thanks to his action on this two years ago.
So what did we learn from the report?
First and foremost, while we do not have a higher number of fatalities than other roadways in the state with similar design issues, we do have an extremely high average speed. The average speed exceeds the speed limit by more than 20 miles per hour. I don’t think anybody will disagree that we need to find a way to slow people down.
There are multiple issues to address, including safe entrances and exits for businesses, crossing four lanes when exiting and heading left, and, perhaps most critical, slowing vehicles down on the Danbury approach before they even reach our border.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This is going to require a comprehensive plan, and I have the utmost confidence in Chief Kreitz and our town planners to make that determination in conjunction with the state and federal DOTs.
We have another big issue to face here: these fatalities nearly always involve alcohol and drugs.
So if we’re serious about making our roads safer, we’re going to have to have a very real conversation about driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
Getting back to Ridgefield’s portion of Route 7, this is an ongoing process, but one the town is taking very seriously, and I will continue to support it in any way they ask. I have no engineering or road safety credentials, and therefore my opinion about what should and should not be done to our roadways carries no weight. But I will continue to do everything I can to make sure the work that must be done gets funded and doesn’t stall in the bureaucracy of pulling federal and state government together.
