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Pomfret Town Highway Superintendent Jude Gardner is seeking a speed study for Farel Road, hoping to post a speed limit lower than 55 miles per hour.
The road stretches from Webster to Van Buren roads, crossing Route 20. It doesn't run straight through; rather, it's in three sections, necessitating short turns onto Route 20 and Berry Road.
Gardner said a resident who lives on the middle section of Farel Road asked him to post speed limit signs there, and he agreed. To do so, Gardner has to seek a new New York State Department of Transportation study, "and I'm going to ask to fill out the form for all three sections," he said at the January Pomfret Town Board meeting.
See FAREL ROAD,
The state DOT has a traffic data tracker with information on the middle section of Farel Road, between Berry Road and Route 20. According to a 2019 calculation, an estimated average of 509 vehicles travel the section every day. The data tracker has no information on the other two sections.
With no signs posted, the default speed limit is 55 miles per hour. Gardner considers that unsafe and town board members agreed.
However, it will take time to make a change. To get a speed study that will lead to signage, Gardner and Town Clerk Alison Vento must fill out a form that goes to the county Department of Public Works. The county DPW then has to forward it to the state so it can take a ride through that bureaucracy.
"This is how slowly things get done," commented town board member Ann Eckman to an audience mostly composed of Fredonia High School students seeking class credit. An adult spectator stated that he had always wondered why Farel Road had no speed limit signs.
Gardner was exhausted after the previous day's windstorm. He spoke of a "20-hour day trying to stay ahead of the trees, branches and anything else." The Fredonia Fire Department and Kravitz Tree Service provided important assistance, he said.
Gardner asked to go home and sleep immediately after his report time early in the meeting. However, later on after he left, Eckman reported a text she just received: Gardner got called back to work.