The Post Road in Westport has the highest amount of traffic-related accidents, according to a traffic map made by the University of Connecticut.
“The police department in Westport contacted us,” said Eric Jackson, executive director of the Connecticut Transportation Institute. “They had a couple of intersections they were interested in, so they contacted us asking for us to just print out some data."
“Several of the maps that I generated and published are maps that even the general public can create themselves,” he said. “We provide the tools that let engineers, or even concerned citizens, be able to go in and query and analyze data to their individual street, town or state.”
With the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the institute created software to screen a state or town and identify places where crashes may occur or potentially happen.
Westport Police Administrative Lieutenant David Wolf said that one of the main reasons behind the many incidents on Post Road may be due to the large amount of traffic.
“I think that it’s the law of averages,” he said. “If you think about the sheer volume of cars that are on those roadways, it’s obviously one of our busiest roadways in town.”
In addition to Post Road, Cross Highway, located between North Avenue and Bayberry Lane, is another concern.
Westport Police Staff Corporal Alan D’Amura told the Representative Town Meeting that there were 11 accidents at Bayberry Lane in 2019, and four accidents at North Avenue this year.
Hearst Connecticut Media reports that the town will also be allocating $285,00 for a traffic study, and will be designing and improving different traffic-related infrastructures like safer intersections, pedestrian bridges and crosswalks.
Additionally, $11.7 million will be used for the creation of left turn lanes of difficult intersections.
However, for now, Wolf recommends that citizens and visitors do their part to make sure they are careful driving for their own sake as well as others.
“The police can’t be everywhere, unfortunately,” he said. “We need our citizenry and visitors who come to Westport to do their part and be respectful when they’re driving on our roadways like limit the speeding, make sure they’re fully stopped and more. I think if we do this, we will go a long way towards reducing this problem.”
