Police Clamp Down on Blocking Lucy Street/Route 69

By the end of the summer, getting ‘stuck in the middle again' in the intersection at Route 69 and Lucy Street will cost drivers around $90.

If you’ve driven through this particular intersection during rush hour, you know exactly what this means: you watched the traffic light turn to red over your head as you sit at a standstill in the middle of the intersection with nowhere to go, cars bumper to bumper ahead.

“This situation is progressively getting worse,” says Woodbridge Police Sgt. Frank Cappiello.  “That area is a traffic nightmare—there is an overwhelming number of cars on the road.”

The intersection will be signed and lined and anyone caught in the painted ‘box’ will be subject to a fine of $90, payable to the state of Connecticut.

In order to designate the intersection under the “prohibition on blocking the box,” ordinance, the town’s Traffic Authority and the Board of Selectmen approved its adoption. After the notification is published in local newspapers, police will begin to make drivers aware that they will be enforcing the new law.

According to the relatively new law, "No operator of a motor vehicle, other than a tractor-trailer unit, shall proceed into an intersection that has been designated, posted and marked by a municipality, unless there is sufficient space on the opposite side of the intersection to accommodate such motor vehicle without obstructing the passage of other vehicles or pedestrians, notwithstanding the indication of a traffic control signal that would permit such operator to proceed into the intersection."

The law allows the municipality to (1) post signs at each such designated intersection indicating that blocking the intersection is prohibited and violators are subject to a fine, and (2) mark, in white paint, the boundary of such intersection with a line not less than one-foot in width and the area within such boundary line with parallel diagonal lines not less than one-foot in width.

“We’ll take a proactive approach and make people aware of the new situation before we begin to issue infractions," Cappiello says.