Town officials and state legislators hope a recently completed road improvement project on Quaker Farms Road (Route 188) that altered a dangerous curve will put an end to traffic fatalities there once and for all.
For decades, a sharp, hairpin turn coming out of a straight away in both directions on Quaker Farms Road — locally called Schreiber’s Corners — has caused many car accidents leading to serious injury and a few deaths.
According to Erik Schreiber, his grandfather, David Schreiber attempted to donate the land to make the necessary adjustments to the thoroughfare along his family’s 425-acre farm, but was denied.
The effort to make road changes continued in 1999 with then First Selectman Paul Schreiber, Erik’s father, opening negotiations with the Department of Transportation and the Council of Governments of the Naugatuck Valley.
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After Schrieber left office, negotiations between the town, Valley COG and the DOT stalled, according to First Selectman Mary Ann Drayton-Rogers, and then heated up again once she was in office.
How dangerous was the bend in the road?
Between January 2003 and December 2007, there were seven car accidents in the half mile area of the curve, according to Department of Transportation statistics.
One of those accidents was a fatal motorcycle accident, where a motorcyclist was hit by a car headed north on the street, as the motorcycle drove over the yellow line into the northbound lane.
According to the DOT stats, the accidents were caused by speeding or the driver losing control.
“It was a sharp and abrupt curve, near 90 degrees,” said Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the DOT. “It was appropriately signed, so motorists would know there was a very sharp curve approaching.”
But Nursick said, by today’s road-building standards, a 90-degree curve wouldn’t fly.
“The original configuration of the road was not a desirous geometry,” Nursick said.
Improvements to the road include widening the shoulders, significantly straightening the sharp turn, installing guardrails and landscaping the area.
Drayton-Rogers said the $638,000 project was awarded to Dayton Construction and the town received 80 percent of its funding through a Federal Surface Transportation Program grant.
The remaining 20 percent was funded with money from the state.
“Because this was a state road, it was done at no cost to the town,” Drayton-Rogers said.
The town had a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday to officially unveil the road improvements.
“The purpose of this project was not to make the road look better, but to improve the safety,” Drayton-Rogers said.
Resident Trooper Sgt. Dan Semosky thinks drivers will fare better on the roadway with the improvements in place and cut down on the number of accidents.
“The road is more manageable and safer to negotiate,” he said.
Schrieber said after looking at the improvements things should get better.
“The old corner would scare the death out of anyone that came around here,” he said. “This is a long time coming and is definitely an improvement.”
