The speed of traffic on Norfolk’s highways and byways has been a concern for years and now town officials are implementing measures to slow drivers, whose speeds have been clocked at more than 100 miles per hour.
The Public Works Department has installed speed bumps on Laurel Way, Aetna Lane, Ashpohtag Road and Old Colebrook Road, and four speed feedback monitors are being used to assess traffic flow around town.
The monitors are currently placed have been placed on Ashpohtag Road, near the intersection of Westside Road and Sunset Drive, Maple Ave and Loon Meadow. First Selectman Henry Tirrell said the feedback monitors can be moved to give town officials information about different parts of town.The Connecticut Department of Transportation began distributing speed monitors in 2020 to help control speeding in rural communities. The program was expanded in 2022 to include all 169 Connecticut municipalities.
These signs detect and display oncoming vehicle speeds, encouraging drivers to slow down without issuing traffic tickets. “Every town got four monitors. They just paint a picture,” Tirrell explained. “They are different than automatic speed ticketing, which is a much more intense process.”
He said the town has some preliminary feedback a traffic volume and speed analyzer—which is different from the feedback monitors—was placed for six days on Greenwoods Road below Infinity Hall. “In six days, 24,000 vehicles passed it and more than 13,000 were traveling at 10 miles an hour or more over the speed limit. Three of them were going more than 100 miles per hour,” Tirrell reported.
He said efforts are being made to assess speeding near Botelle School, where a truck carrying 8,200 gallons of gasoline overturned in 2022.
Town officials looked at the possibility of installing an automatic ticketing system last year, but no action was taken. “It’s a conversation we will have to have at some point if we want to get people to slow down,” Tirrell said. “These analyses will hopefully help the town decide if they want to do that.”