Will Greenwich spend money for safer streets wisely?
To hear the comments of several dozen Greenwich residents at a public forum Monday night was to hear them describe the full scope of the town’s traffic nightmare: Running stoplights, rolling through stop signs, speeding down neighborhood roads and streets so dangerous, several parents said they did not feel their children were safe outside their homes, let alone walking to school.
Communities across the country are wrestling with a similar crisis. What’s different in Greenwich is the town’s slow and seemingly patchwork approach to a problem with far-ranging consequences.
That’s my takeaway from the two-hour session at Town Hall billed as meeting to solicit community input on traffic and pedestrian safety.
Greenwich received $400,000 through the Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets 4 All program but has not yet decided how it will be spent, at least that’s what town engineer Engineer Michael Kiselak explained in a brief presentation at the start of the meeting.
This is not money the town can do with as it wishes, however. The DOT requires that funds be used in a manner that is supported by data, analysis, collaboration, equity in application, strategic selection of projects and public transparency.
The Department of Public Works may well be planning to follow those requirements. But what it felt like, listening to my fellow citizens was something very different. They were asked to talk about specific trouble spots about which they were aware. And one after another they pleaded for attention to specific roads, intersections, parking violations, line of sight obstructions and crosswalks.
Some described horrifying conditions such as the 600-plus cars barreling everyday through Perna Lane, a residential street without sidewalks.
I am an air safety specialist and a long-time resident of Old Greenwich. When it was my turn to speak, I suggested town officials approach safety as commercial aviation does, by recognizing that safety is not accomplished by isolated actions, which merely transport the problem somewhere else. Safety is a complex, interconnected system. That’s why the DOT requires that municipalities such as Greenwich collect data from across the town analyze it, identify the factors contributing it. Only then can it create comprehensive solutions using the tools that have been shown to be effective; education, enforcement, road design, vehicle design and community engagement.
Greenwich, and Connecticut, are behind other places including New York City and Portland, Ore., which years ago instituted Vision Zero or Safe Streets programs.
Being late to the game, while embarrassing, actually presents an opportunity. What those cities have learned can be studied, adopted or modified as appropriate to speed up Greenwich’s response. While community hearings allow people to share their experiences it is not data. It is anecdotes.
Further, it is unseemly for citizens to have to beg individually for what we deserve and what that DOT money is intended to do, begin the process toward achieving safe streets for all.
Christine Negroni Old Greenwich