Chik-fil-A Could Bring Traffic Trouble To Fairfield, Some Fear

FAIRFIELD, CT — Concern that a proposed fast food restaurant could slow traffic near Fairfield Center continues to dominate discussions about a possible Chik-fil-A in town.

“We have some very significant backups,” Town Plan and Zoning Commission Chair Matthew Wagner said during a public hearing Tuesday, as he questioned whether the business would further exacerbate traffic downtown. “You don’t know until it’s built.”

The owner of an approximately 2-acre property at 750 Post Road and 42 Eliot St. is seeking a special permit and coastal site plan approval from the commission to construct the 5,000-square-foot restaurant. The site was formerly occupied by Joe's American Bar & Grill and Colonial Unisex Hair Cutters.

Representatives of property owner 750 Post Road Associates LLC presented new traffic data Tuesday, when a public hearing that began in August resumed. Based on traffic counts at Chik-fil-A’s Norwalk and Wallingford restaurants, a Fairfield location could expect to draw 333 vehicle trips during its peak hour mid-day Saturday, 280 trips during a typical peak afternoon hour and 70 trips during a morning peak, according to traffic engineer Rob Baltramaitis.

“That’s five-and-a-half cars per minute,” Wagner said of the Saturday data.

Many vehicles patronizing the restaurant would already be on the road, Baltramaitis noted, adding each vehicle is counted both entering and leaving the business.

“Saturday mid-day is really your worst-case scenario,” he said.

The developer is also proposing a time adjustment to the nearby traffic signal at Post and Benson roads. If the restaurant is built and the signal is modified, traffic would improve or stay the same at neighboring intersections in the afternoon peak hour, with the exception of the Post Road and Eliot Place, according to Baltramaitis. Under the same conditions, mid-day Saturday traffic would be worse at Benson Road and Eliot Street and the Post Road and Eliot Place, but remain unchanged elsewhere.

If constructed, the restaurant would include a two-lane drive-thru with a capacity for 36 cars. Another eight vehicles would be able to overflow into the parking lot — which would have 76 spaces — without effecting drive lanes. Cars would enter the drive-thru near Eliot Place and leave onto the Post Road via a right-turn-only exit. About 2,000 vehicles pass the site during peak traffic hours.

Chik-fil-A wants to open a Fairfield location in part to take pressure off its Norwalk restaurant, which has become a source of traffic trouble. The problems in Norwalk were a central component of the argument made Tuesday by attorney Joel Green, who is representing several nearby businesses that are worried about the Fairfield project.

Green said he visited the Norwalk location 1 p.m. on a Saturday.

“The traffic on the site is chaotic,” he said, adding the situation was similar when he went to Chik-fil-A’s Brookfield restaurant about 6:45 p.m. on a Friday.

In Norwalk, vehicles were trapped in parking spaces and one car took nearly 24 minutes to receive its order, Green said, adding vehicles in the Brookfield drive-thru were backed up onto the public road.

Green also criticized Chik-fil-A for presenting traffic data that he characterized as “sparse” and “embarrassing.” He will continue to make his case Oct. 12, when the hearing resumes.