Rep. Frey: Safety Rumble Strips Installed on Route 7 Ridgefield-Danbury

Continuing his decade-long mission to improve the quality and safety of Route 7 through Ridgefield, State Representative John Frey (R-111) helped get the roadway included in a state Department of Transportation pilot project of installing centerline rumble strips on state roads.

“When I first heard that the DOT was going to be doing this pilot project, I immediately suggested Route 7 be included in the pilot program,” Rep. Frey, a member of the Legislature’s Transportation Bonding sub-committee said. “When they announced the planned four locations, Ridgefield wasn’t one of them. Knowing what a benefit this would be for the safety of our commuters, I got right to work making sure we were included.”

The center line rumble strips were installed on Friday, April 25th.  The cost of doing the work on the nearly four miles of road from the intersection of Routes 7 and 35 to the entrance of I-84 was approximately $16,000.

Centerline rumble strips are parallel grooves cut into a road’s pavement in the center line that divides opposite-direction travel lanes. The state Dept. of Transportation describes the strips as “a low-cost safety measure designed to reduce head-on and side swipe opposite direction crashes.”

Various studies have shown that centerline rumble strips reduce crossover collisions by around 50%.

In response to the approximately 30 deaths and 1,000 injuries from these accidents occurring across the state each year, the DOT is testing the strips as a simple and cost-effective safety measure. Like the rumble strips on the sides of highways, the noise and vibration of a car veering across the rumble strips are designed to alert distracted, inattentive, or drowsy drivers that they are leaving their lanes.

“The rumble strip creates vibration and noise, so it reaches drivers through two senses – hearing and feel,”said DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick.

Rep. Frey, who was also instrumental in Route 7’s widening in both 2005 and 2009 at a cost of $66,000,000, contacted local officials and asked them to contact the DOT and lend their support to including Route 7 on the list of roads included in the pilot.

Within 12 hours, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Ridgefield Police Chief John Roche, and Ridgefield Police Commission Chairman Thomas Reynolds acting as the Town’s Traffic Authority had all sent letters of support for Route 7’s inclusion to DOT’s engineers.

Rep. Frey’s persistence paid off when DOT officials agreed to include Route 7 on their list of roads included in the pilot project, completing the work little more than a week after Frey first discussed the issue with the state engineers.

“While eliminating distracted and drowsy driving is still the key to preventing accidents, this improvement should go a long way toward reducing the number of incidents on Route 7,” Frey added. “I thank CT DOT for their speedy reaction to my request to have this stretch of road included in the pilot program.  If all goes well here, I would hope that the DOT will expand the program to all roads fitting their criteria.”

Rep. Frey was also instrumental in gaining State Traffic Commission approval for a traffic signal to be installed at the intersection of Laurel Ridge and Route 7.  In addition to securing state approval for the signal, he requested and received a $75,000 grant to help towards the installation, which should be completed in the next month.