09/21/10 Motorists face daily dance in high-traffic section of town

By Frank MacEachern, Staff Writer - Greenwich Time

The intersection of Byram Road and West Putnam Avenue is an accident waiting to happen, according to Mary Ann Mullen.

"It's terrible. The traffic coming up from Port Chester is moving up very, very quickly," the Byram Road resident said. "A lot of people try to jump out and you hear a lot of brakes squealing."

The eastbound lanes of West Putnam Avenue near Byram Road are some of the most heavily traveled in town. The section of roadway is the scene of many accidents, including the death of a Virginia woman who was struck by a truck as she was trying to cross the roadway Sept. 3.

Mullen said more must be done to make the area safer.

"What we really need down here is a "T" intersection or a regular intersection," she said. "Maybe reconfigure the intersection and put in a traffic light."

She and other residents may have to wait a long time for that, according to a spokesman for the state's Department of Transportation.

The department studied the area in the 1990s, according to Kevin Nursick. Even relatively minor changes like installing traffic signals were rejected because they would cause traffic congestion in Greenwich and New York state, he said.

"We had been, for lack of a better term, eyeballing this area for improvement for a period of time," Nursick said. "It is not probably an ideal design. It's a little bit convoluted, and you have two jurisdictions involved."

The major challenge motorists face is coming out of Byram Road, said two men who have a front seat to the traffic mayhem....

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