The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Planning for safer sidewalks
$1.8 million development grant awarded
TORRINGTON — Dozens of blocks on the heavily traveled East Main Street lack sidewalks, which puts pedestrians at risk.
“People are walking in the road. They take their life in their own hands,” said city Planner Martin J. Connor.
To remedy the dangerous situation, the state recently awarded the city a development grant of $1.8 million.
The sidewalk project is a long time in coming. It was included in the city’s 2010 Conservation and Development Plan, a report required by the state every 10 years to secure funding.
“We want to put sidewalks wherever they will fit,” Connor said.
There are nine pedestrian crossings and nine streetlights along the corridor where the upgrades will be built, according to officials.
“In an ideal world, there would be sidewalks on both sides,” said Rista Malanca, city Zoning Enforcement Officer.
The corridor expected to receive the upgrade, according to the grant documents, stretches from Torrington Heights Road to the Big Lots Plaza.
The project design phase will begin soon, Malanca said, and is expected to take six months to a year to complete.
“This is a really good project for Torrington,” she said. “It will provide a safe way for those in the neighborhood to get to businesses” in the area.
“People are not choosing to walk along the road because they want to, but because they have to,” Malanca said.
A “Road Safety Audit,” conducted from 2008-2012, the latest study done for the East Main Street corridor, shows 32 accidents occurred at the the intersection of Dibble Street and Torringford Road, resulting in 16 injuries.
One accident was so serious that a passenger had to be extricated from the vehicle. In the area between the Walmart Plaza and the Target Plaza, the audit showed 24 accidents occurred resulting in five injuries.
The latest accident records for all of Torrington, compiled by the state Department of Transportation in 2014, show there were 889 crashes, 197 injuries and three fatalities.