The long line of cars on Roosevelt Drive in Derby seemed endless as Michele Sharik waited to cross the street with her two sons to get to summer camp Thursday morning.
Finally, a motorcycle stopped at the crosswalk near Lakeview Terrace — marked off by two orange traffic cones and highlighted by yellow pedestrian crossing signs — and Sharik hurried with her boys across the street.
Crossing the street there is a daily hazard for parents bringing their children to the camp, Sharik said.
Sharik is spreading the word about the intersection in hopes that drivers will slow down and respect the crosswalk.
“I just want the cars to know this is a crosswalk and a camp,” said Sharik. “A lot of the cars go fast. They are not aware the crosswalk is here, and we just want the traffic to slow down. There’s a lot of kids, and we just want them to know the camp is open, and this is a crosswalk.”
The Crosswalk
The Recreation Camp — a private, non-profit summer camp — is run out of a building on the banks of the Housatonic River. To get there, parents walk their children down a long staircase that starts on Roosevelt Drive — or Route 34.
There are only two parking spots on the east-bound side of Roosevelt Drive near the camp, and parents dropping off their children park across the street in another small parking lot.
The camp runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and hires crossing guards to help the children get across the road, said Ron Napoli, assistant director of the camp.
But during special early drop-off hours, for parents who have to get to work before 9:30 a.m., no crossing guards are on duty to help. The camp doesn’t have money in the budget to hire extra crossing guards during those hours, Napoli said.
Route 34 is heavily traveled in the morning, as commuters make their way to Route 8, New Haven and Route 84 in Newtown.
Safety
The camp has made improvements for safety, such as adding the parking lot for drop-offs across the street, Napoli said.
And Derby police installed the orange traffic cones this year, Napoli said.
The state Department of Transportation has adequate signs at the crosswalk, according to Kevin Nursick, spokesman for the DOT.
What it comes down to is whether people obey the rules of the road, Nursick said.
“It is a scenario I hear from time to time from residents across that state, that folks are not obeying the rules when it comes to yielding the right of way to pedestrians in a crosswalk,” Nursick said.
“There shouldn’t be any reason motorists can’t see the crosswalk and there is no excuse for them not yielding the right of way,” Nursick said.
Adding more signs would not necessarily improve the safety, he said.
Sharik said she has seen a couple cars rear-ended at the crosswalk.
Police spokesman Lt. Sal Frosceno said he wasn’t aware of any car accidents at the site.
Frosceno said the department received one call this year from a parent with concerns about the traffic at the crossing.
The police department spoke with the camp director, and told him to notify police if he finds out about any problems on the road, Frosceno said.
“I’m not minimizing what the parent said,” Frosceno said. “We recognize Roosevelt Drive for what it is, and we’re often out there.”
The Derby Police Department actively patrols the road, Frosceno said.
He didn’t have specific statistics for the intersection where the camp is located, but said along the entire stretch of road, the police department had stopped 300 cars since January 2010, and given out 178 tickets.
In that same time period, 50 car accidents have occurred on the entire stretch of road. Frosceno was not sure if any of those were near the crosswalk.
Parents
Thursday morning three cars drove through the crosswalk as a man waited to cross after dropping his children off at the camp.
He shrugged his shoulders, and grimaced.
“It is dangerous,” said parent Cindy Vitone of Shelton, who was dropping her daughters off at the camp at 8 a.m.
Sharik said she hopes the police department could add more signs further down the road, to warn drivers of the upcoming crosswalk.
But at a minimum, she hopes drivers will remember her plea, and slow down in the area.
“The camp is awesome. This is our sixth year here,” Sharik said. “I just want the drivers to know this is a crosswalk for a camp.”
