The Sugar Hollow Road bridge in Wilton has been closed for repairs and the town will need to make adjustments to road’s interesection with U.S. Route 7 to better traffic flow.
Contributed Photo / Wilton Police DepartmentWILTON — Officials are making some changes to the intersection of Sugar Hollow road and U.S. Route 7 after residents raised concerns following the closing of an old bridge for repair.
Changes include moving where cars stop on Sugar Hollow, as well as possibly lowering the speed limit there, Police Chief John Lynch told selectmen this week.
Lynch said a lot of residents were now using Sugar Hollow to turn onto Route 7 since the bridge was closed, especially those traveling north. The extra congestion prompted him to ask Lt. Dave Hartman to study the area to see what improvements were needed.
“What he found is that we could make improvements with the sight lines and also with moving the stop sign and stop bar closer to Route 7, making it more of a legitimate intersection stop,” Lynch said.
Lynch suggested lowering the speed limit from the current 40 miles per hour on Sugar Hollow to make the changes more manageable.
The speed limit change will be requested through the state Department of Transportation, as well some clearing near the intersection where the town looks to put new curbing to make it more of a “straightforward enter/exit stop sign area,” Lynch said.
The stop sign would go on Sugar Hollow Road though, meaning the town doesn’t need the state’s permission despite Route 7 being a state road. Lynch said the town’s traffic authority already signed off on the change and the Department of Public Works will paint the new lines on the road.
The town is planning to reach out to the state soon for a timeline, but Lynch said the town is aware of the work it can do while waiting for a response and can plan accordingly.
While more “drastic” work can be done to the area, Lynch said that it can be costly and nearby property owners would have to be involved.
Nearby residents have shared concerns with the police department, including recently meeting with the police to request changes to ease traffic flow back onto Route 7 from Sugar Hollow Road.
“They came in very open-minded, they were just asking for assistance to help make things safer,” Lynch said. “The bridge can’t be fixed overnight. It’s going to take time, so I think they were happy with the fact that we had done the study and made the recommendations to change things to make it a little safer in the interim.”
Resident John Nessel told Lynch during the selectmen meeting that he was happy the bridge was being repaired, but wondered if alternate methods were being explored.
He said if agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers could build bridges quickly during wartime, why couldn’t a more temporary fix be looked at for the bridge while a permanent plan was formulated?
First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice said the town could have a tremendous liability risk if someone was injured due to a “non-standard repair.”