Hey Ansonia side-street speed demons: THAT RED AND WHITE OCTANGULAR PIECE OF METAL at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and West Main Street is called A STOP SIGN.
NOW USE IT, and stop trying to kill me every morning.
The Valley Indy office is on the third floor of 158 Main St., Suite 305.
I have no idea why that’s our address, because the public entrance to the building is on West Main Street, directly across from the Ansonia train station.
Anyway, when we launched in June 2009, there wasn’t much traffic on West Main Street. We could park our cars in the spaces off West Main Street and get in and out with no problem.
Fast forward two years and West Main Street has become a cut-through for rush hour motorists looking to avoid the traffic lights on Main Street. Backing up on the street during rush hour is a pain.
The problem — the reconstruction of the Maple Street bridge has forced motorists to use the bridge on Bridge Street. It’s put more traffic on Main Street.
Motorists will cut down either Railroad Avenue, a short road next to the Yankee Peddler pawn shop, or Kingston Drive to make a left turn to continue toward Bridge Street.
That’s fine and dandy, but these motoring maniacs don’t seem to realize that:
1. West Main Street is an actual road, with oncoming traffic, and
2. THERE ARE FREAKIN’ STOP SIGNS THERE
Don’t believe me?
Well, we sent Valley Indy traffic reporter Tony Spinelli — with his iPhone and a second video camera — to the intersection of Railroad and West Main Street at 8 a.m. Friday.
Tony sat in his car until 8:35 a.m.
Precisely 32 cars passed through the intersection in 35 minutes.
Only two vehicles came to complete stops before turning onto West Main Street. Two made partial stops.
Here’s Tony’s video. He was hiding in the front seat of his car to avoid detection, so parts of the video ain’t pretty — but it makes the point:
Perhaps people who run the stop sign at Railroad and West Main don’t expect cars to be coming. After all, a portion of West Main Street behind Massimino’s disappears into a void of nothingness.
But there are also plenty of merchants, fellow office workers and commuters who park on West Main Street.
If you continue to run the stop sign and gun it in a race to avoid Main Street’s traffic lights, you are going to crash into someone or something.
Ask Wendy, the owner of Wendy’s Treasurers at 23 W. Main St., which is on the corner of West Main and Kingston Drive.
She told Spinelli Friday that the motorists constantly blow through the stop sign on Kingston Drive as well.
“It’s only a matter of time before there’s an accident,” Wendy said of the stop sign scofflaw situation.
Kerline Joseph works at Ultimate Designs, the hair and barber salon next to Wendy’s Treasures.
“The cars are always flying by,” Joseph said. “We need a yield sign to make them slow down.”
At this point in a column about a stop sign, you’re supposed to blame the police for not monitoring the stop sign/speed enforcement or whatever.
I’m not going to do that. There’s more important stuff for a cop to do than monitor the stop sign outside my office.
So I’ll just say — at the least, please slow down and look both ways before you blow the stop sign to speed up West Main.
You’re going to kill somebody, or yourself.
Heaven forbid you’re five minutes late to your grave!
For the record, Ansonia Police Lt. Wayne Williams said Friday officers often deploy their speed trailer on Main Street near Railroad Avenue to slow motorists down. They also go after motorists who violate the crosswalk law in front of the Senior Center.
Williams said more people are using West Main due to the Bridge Street closure, but they haven’t received complaints about the Railroad Avenue stop sign specifically.
“We will add it to the hotspots that we have identified for increased traffic enforcement,” Williams said.
Finally — the Maple Street bridge is scheduled to re-open in November, just two months behind schedule.
