Council keeps Prospect Street one-way proposal open after safety concerns

The Middletown Common Council left a public hearing open on a proposal to make Prospect Street one-way westbound from North Street to Beacon Street after residents and council members raised concerns about notification, signage and traffic safety.

Commissioner (speaker 26) described the traffic-management recommendation as the result of a $31 million traffic operations project and said consultants recommended the change to reduce accidents where drivers were not stopping at signs. "The only way we thought of doing is to go one way, going up the hill and not to allow people to come rolling down the hill from Prospect Street into North Street," the commissioner said while explaining the design and the covered signs already in place.

Police Chief (unnamed) told the council there had been "a very serious accident this year" at Prospect and North in which a motorcyclist was paralyzed after being struck by a vehicle that did not stop at a stop sign; he agreed to supply two years of accident statistics to the council. Several residents said the presence of covered one-way signs made the plan feel like a "done deal" and asked for more time; one council member requested the police statistics for a recent two-year period and the chief agreed to provide them within days.

Council members asked clarifying questions about alternate routes, the project's prior examples (Robertson Drive) and whether the police had been consulted during design. The public hearing was kept open for two weeks to allow additional comments and for the police to provide crash data. The council did not adopt the one-way ordinance at the meeting; signs will remain covered until the resolution passes.