To the Editor,
On April 30, 2021, three members of the Graystone Association, which represents residents of Graystone Circle, sent a petition with the signatures of more than 50 people living along Lakeview Avenue to Tiger Mann, New Canaan’s Director of Public Works, requesting the installation of a sidewalk along Lakeview between Main Street and Millport Avenue. At that time, the petition endorsers noted the hazard to pedestrians – mothers with strollers, toddlers, school children and dogs – presented by trucks, ambulances, school buses and cars racing to and from Route 123 to Main Street.
As a resident of Graystone Circle, I wrote to Tiger on August 21, 2023, enclosing a copy of the petition, noting increased vehicular traffic on Lakeview, and requesting a meeting with the president of our Association, two of the three original petitioners, and myself. We had that meeting with Tiger before the end of August 2023, during which he said the sidewalk should be installed before the end of April 2024.
This year I contacted Tiger again to determine on which dates the sidewalk would be installed. Tiger said the date would probably be sometime in the spring of 2025.
While I recognize that Tiger and his department are very busy, and that New Canaan has several construction priorities at any given time, the combination of no sidewalk, more pedestrians and relatively faster vehicular traffic has turned Lakeview into an accident waiting to happen. The idea of children simply walking home from school with friends being put in this dangerous position is unconscionable.
On behalf of my own family and those of our neighbors, I look forward to learning of a firm, expedited sidewalk installation timeline, and additional measures to mitigate the current dangerous pedestrian situation on Lakeview Avenue.
Robert T. Grieves
