Four residents e-mailed First Selectman Matt Riiska last week supporting his proposal to slow speeding motorists immediately after it was revealed in last week’s newsletter.
This week, he reviewed additional details with his board of selectmen. “We’ve been trying to figure out a way to get traffic calmed down in town since 2018,” he said. “The Economic Development Commission has even had a subcommittee working on it, but it’s been painful.”
To date, the state DOT has refused to lower the 40-mph speed limit entering town from the east and cars habitually speed on routes 272 and 44, as well as on some much-traveled side roads.
He met last week with a representative of SiteStream, a traffic control company that is negotiating with Winsted, and has information on two other firms supplying radar cameras that gather data on the speed of vehicles. The firms capture the data, a human verifies it and citations are emailed to the vehicles’ owners. The first offense carries a fine of $50 plus a $15 management fee. Subsequent offenses cost $75 plus management fees.
Riiska said the town would pay nothing for equipment involved and would receive 15 percent of the amount collected. The town would designate someone to verify the data. “We won’t make a ton of money, but will it slow traffic,” he predicted.
The programs have been effective at slowing traffic in the few other Connecticut towns that have tried them but, he cautioned, there are many steps to go through to put the system in place.
“You have to have a municipal plan, which is cumbersome” he said. “There are a lot of components. And you have to create an ordinance that goes a public hearing and town meeting. We should try to form a subcommittee to put the information together.”
Riiska is leaving office after the November election and implementation will fall to the new selectmen.