Kathryn Russell
Aug 16, 2023
What’s the Rush on Main Street?
Hello!
What’s the matter with Main Street? Lack of parking and parking signage, businesses closing, and speeding. Today, I want to focus on vehicular speeding, an issue which impacts safety, quality of life and economic growth in our town.
As I speak with various business owners on Main Street, I have heard repeatedly that we have a problem with speeding and vehicle noise on Main Street (Route 154) and the primary cross streets, especially Elm Street (Route 80). A few of the intersections are flat out dangerous. Business owners have watched children come perilously close to serious accidents.
This has been a problem for many years, yet our municipal leaders have not tried to solve this problem with a set of consistent enforcement actions. There has been an unwillingness to enforce current laws or ticket speeders.
What is the solution? What process should we follow in order to get to a point of resolution? The first step is to have a mindset change. Deep River residents and businesses deserve more than just being a “passthrough” for consumer and commercial drivers to zip through on their way to other places. Clinton and Madison have addressed similar problems with their Main Streets despite their Main Street being Route 1, a State highway. Let’s learn from what they did and how they did it.
The solution to speeding on Main Street is complex, and requires close coordination with State and local transportation and safety officials. But the answer is not to get angry and disrespectfully dismiss our local business leaders when they raise the issue at Board of Selectmen meetings, or to say that “people speed everywhere, all across the State of Connecticut.”
As First Selectwoman, I plan to work closely with Main Street business owners, our local law enforcement officers and with officials at the State Department of Transportation to make significant improvements in the problem of speeding on Main Street. Together, let’s make Deep River a town we can be even more proud of.
Thank you for your continued interest and support of my campaign. What’s On Your Mind?
Warm regards,
Katie