A letter to the Editors of the Insider brings to light an old but once again relevant issue. With decommissioning of the Middletown's Sewage Treatment plant and the subsequent joining of the Mattabassett Sewage District scheduled for referendum this fall, new opportunities open up Middletown's river front for development. One reader cautions citizens and begs the question: Is an increase in patronage to businesses downtown worth the tragedies that have resulted from traffic lights put in place to direct people to Main Street? With new developments on the horizon, what will the new traffic patterns needed to be to satisfy developers look like? What have we learned and what can we do to make this stretch of road safer now that there may be new opportunities?
The Hartford Courant published an article about the CT Department of Transportation's conclusion that this stretch in Middletown is the most dangerous stretch of roadway in the state. Read the article here. In the Courant's article, manager of Amato's on Main Street Diane Gervais describes the delicate relationship between Route 9 Traffic and Main Street patronage, she is said: "Our customers need access to Route 9, and we need access to our
customers from Route 9."
Below is one readers opinion, in his own words. All letters to the editor do no necessarily reflect views of the Insider and are posted for information purposes only.
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When Route 9 was proposed to pass along the river front in Middletown, the leaders of another generation agreed to it on one condition. That being there be traffic lights on a four lane highway to stop passing motorists for the sole purpose of patronizing Middletown businesses.
The lives lost at that dangerous bottleneck will be forever on their heads. Take the traffic lights off RT 9 and end the bottleneck to the flow of traffic. There are plenty of on- and off-ramps and the traffic lights are not needed and are deadly.
Tom Salafia, Resident of Middletown, CT
Thursday, August 23, 2012
3 comments:
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Interesting animation from The Courant showing how accidents occur at Rte 17 on ramp to Rte 9 North:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-route-nine-dangerous-intersection-flash-1117,0,3088305.flash
the business owners are responsible for the lives lost to make a buck!
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous! Excuse me, what lives lost? And, do you have any clue about what would be entailed in eliminating the traffic lights on Rte 9? For sure, the Rte 17 on ramp could be fixed but think of the costs and land acquisitions needed to complete a Rte 9, Rte 66, and Rte 17 interchange.
ReplyDeleteI think the business owners are worried about denied access to downtown while construction takes place such as happened in New Britain. Civic leader and businessman Vincent Amato said at the time; "I've lived with what the highway projects did to downtown New Britain. If you took out the traffic lights and put up Jersey barriers across the exits, you'd solve the Route 9 problem - and you could say goodbye to Middletown."
On a related matter I note satisfactory progress of the deck replacement project on the Arrigoni Bridge. With the cooperation of DOT, the contractor, and local authorities the work appears on or even ahead of schedule.