Unionville Traffic Committee to Pass Issue to Council

After almost two years, this phase of the Unionville Traffic Committee’s work will come to an end after the group meets with the public Feb. 29 and submits findings to the Town Council.

During a review of the council’s goals for the next two years, councilor Patty Stoddard made a motion to allow the traffic committee to hold its final meeting Feb. 29, then report back to the council with conclusions drawn from the committee’s work. The timeframe was extended into March and the motion was approved. A vote approving the entire list of goals was tabled and could be changed.

The council will consider the committee’s findings together with information about the Unionville bridge to be presented by a Department of Transportation official Feb. 28. Members will use the data to create a survey, asking residents to weigh in on their priorities in town.

“You guys have been heroic in getting public input on our traffic problems,” Town Council Chairman Jeff Hogan said to councilors John Vibert and Charlie Keniston, who lead the traffic committee. “It’s time to get that input, put it to work and use the work you have done to put together a survey.”

Keniston was not ready to hand back his charge but several council members said the committee had become mired in a back and forth with the community and it is time for the council to bring the issue to the whole town and then decide how to proceed.

“We need a broader, townwide perspective,” said Town Manager Kathy Eagen. “We know how to fix the traffic problem, we know how to do it. The issue is what the community is going to accept.”

Hearing from the community through the survey is key, she said, otherwise, the committee may come up with further ideas that will be rejected.

“It could take a year to get a consensus from that group of 150 people,” she said.

Vibert said he was concerned that a townwide survey would confirm most residents want a traffic solution and override the concerns of a small group.

“It is our responsibility as leaders to ensure the conditions of the road for safety,” Hogan said. “At this point we’ve had a lot of discussion. Now it’s the council’s job to do something.”

New options

Every discussion about Unionville traffic includes residents saying the real solution is to widen the current bridge or to build another, connecting New Britain Avenue to either Monteith Drive or Brickyard Road. But until now, the expensive proposals had been off the table. The local road was said to require town funding.

But Hogan said new state Department of Transportation Commissioner James P. Redeker may change that and may change the focus of traffic discussions.

"We have new doors open that we didn’t before,” said Hogan, who chaired two earlier traffic committees, including the group that recommended the Unionville bridge be widened. The proposal was rejected by the council.

Hogan said Redeker seemed visionary and is using design-build approach on three state bridge projects.

"The commissioner said 'we’re doing design-build, we have the background for it and there's someone who lives in your town, that was involved with the last commitee, is directly involved in all three," Hogan said.

Redeker agreed the state doesn't have money to redoing the Unionville bridge, Hogan said, but that an alternative bridge might be an option.

The Town could look to its legislative delegation for a bonding opportunity to finance a new bridge.

"Information from the DOT commissioner relative to the potential for a second bridge and also relative to potential funding for repair of the existing bridge changes the dynamic of our discussion around traffic," Hogan said.