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NORWALK, Conn. – Wendy Allen thinks she knows the most unsafe road in Norwalk: the one she lives on. Terence Newman says Allen is wrong. Glasser Street is not bad, she says, but the street he lives on, North Taylor Avenue, is one of the worst in Norwalk.
The speed bumps installed while Alex Knopp was mayor to help Glasser Street residents have made matters worse, Allen says. "Now what we have is landscapers going over the speed bumps," she said. "So in the morning I'll be on the phone with my mom and she's like, 'OMG, what was that?' It's the landscapers going over the speed bump and everything is crashing around."
The speed bumps were a concession to the residents, who lost a bid to make their road a one-way street while fighting to keep a storage facility from being built on neighboring Bouton Street, she said. Vehicles headed for the facility cannot go down Bouton Street from Lowe Street because of the steep hill, she said.
She hates the speed bumps. "They made it worse," she said. "Where I live there's a blind curve. Everybody is parking on the street, and it's really only wide enough for one car to go through when people are parked on the street. When I come out of my driveway, people are accelerating from having gone over the speed bump. And there's a blind curve.
"So, really, I just park on the street. I feel like I'm going to get hit when I back out of my own driveway."
Newman, a delivery driver for Norwalk Pizza and Pasta, often drives on Glasser Street. He doesn't think it is too bad. "Speed bumps are good for streets. What are you talking about?" he asked.
At first Newman said East Avenue is one of the worst because it's busy and the lane changes on the southern end are confusing. He has seen many accidents there, he said.
Then Newman said he wished North Taylor Avenue had speed bumps, too. "People are speeding on the hill," he said, adding that he has trouble backing out of his driveway and fears being hit by a speeder.
What do you think? Is the road you live on one of most unsafe in Norwalk? Or do you have another candidate in mind? Have the speed bumps hurt or helped?
Tell us what you think are the worst roads in Norwalk! Leave a comment below.
Comments (7)
All the number streets in east Norwalk are bad. People speed down these streets using them as cut through streets from cove to Gregory. What these drivers don't understand is that there are a lot of little kids riding bikes or playing near the street. We've had parents almost get hit cars on these streets. They should all have speed bumps and be one way with the exception of 1st and 5th as they are main rds.
I've made reports to city hall and the pd and nothing was ever done. Now you can see sometimes we put obsticsls in the road forcing people to slow down.
North Taylor Avenue is terrible, I have to say with all the accidents that happen on North Taylor it is sad that the city has done nothing. But as they say you can't fight City Hall. I tried to get some sort of speed enforcement but guess what ? the police can't even find a safe place to park to do radar. Does that say something?
With North Taylor avenue being a school bus route you would think the city would do something. Stop signs at intersections would slow drivers down, the only stop sign that was installed was after the accident that happened at the beginning of North Taylor when a car went off the road and destroyed two vehicles in the residents driveway...
When is it going to be enough? When someone dies? Is that when things get done.
It's going to get worse as Norwalk lets the larger stores in causing traffic on the main streets which will cause drivers to take short cuts forcing them onto side streets.
Maybe it's time For City Hall to look at surrounding towns and see what they do for their residents. I would have to say they do way more than norwalk does for it's residents.
Norwalk is not what it once was!!
Its more people than roads.
Well said Ken. The roads are by and large designed by engineers who went to school for this sort of thing and know what they're doing. Since much of Norwalk was not planned as a City with a grid system, in some cases the roads are not quite as wide as they might be, or the grading is sub-optimal, but all of this would not be an issue if people were to simply slow down and drive at or close to the posted speed limits.
Has to be the Wolpit raceway. They gun from the north end near Partrick Stop at Murray then zoom past the Wolfpit school and barely stop at the Strawberry Hill sign en route to the Post Road. Same thing going the other way. It will take someone dying near the Orchard Hill Road turn to get them to listen.
North Taylor Speedway is pretty bad but there's a lot of roads around town that have bad /blind curves or hills. People just need to slow down, and one step towards that is to ramp up speed and parking enforcement issues.
That won't happen because most police seem to be directing traffic at road destruction sites all over the city and can't be bothered slowing anyone down.
People won't slow down because where THEY have to go is obviously more important than anywhere YOU have to go. It's that selfish, entitled attitude that's been with us since the 1980's.
Garner Street...No sidewalks, steep windy hill, people park on both sides at the bottom of the hill, and it narrows at the bottom of the hill. And it's a two way.