Category: Urbanism

Pedestrian Obligation

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal on April 23, 2026.

Over the past few decades, Windsor has actively placed public housing and elderly housing in the Center. We did this with an implicit promise that these residents would be able to reach life’s essentials on foot: the library, CVS, the Post Office, Town Hall, Geissler’s, the train station, bus stops, local shops, and local employers. The proximity of these places is the reason it made sense to site public and elderly housing here in the first place. Walkability was not a bonus feature: it was the whole point.

The snow storms this past winter emphasized this point; when we fail to keep sidewalks clear in February, and when we leave Broad Street configured as a four-lane highway bypass, we are not just creating inconvenience for dog walkers; we are ignoring an obligation to our most vulnerable neighbors.

Crossing Broad Street is not optional for these residents. It is how they reach their prescriptions, social services, employment, and each other. Broad Street today is not a neighborhood street. Seventy percent of the cars on it today are through traffic. Thirty percent of drivers exceed the speed limit. The corridor sees a crash about once a month.

The Broad Street Pedestrian Safety Project is simple. It narrows Broad Street from four travel lanes to two, adds a center turn lane, installs bike lanes, and shortens the crosswalks with curb extensions. Federal Highway Administration research shows reconfigurations like this reduce crashes and cut the risk of serious injury and death to all users of the roadway, but most especially pedestrians. This is especially important as elderly and disable people are disproportionately injured and killed as pedestrians in the U.S. The project is fully funded by federal and state grants pulled into town by elected officials at all level of government. This project uses zero property tax money.

It’s worth repeating: This project uses zero property tax money.

Our elderly and disabled neighbors are customers for Center businesses, patients at local clinics, and employees at local establishments that are hiring. A road they cannot safely cross is a customer lost, a worker a business cannot retain. The residents, the merchants, and the neighborhood associations closest to Broad Street are the ones who most consistently support this project. That is not an coincidence.

There is a broader principle here. When a town invites residents into a specific neighborhood on the promise that they will be able to live there without a car, it takes on an obligation. That obligation does not end at the ribbon cutting. It extends to the systems those residents rely on to live, even systems as banal as sidewalks and crosswalks.

Windsor Center is gradually returning to its roots as a walkable community for people to commune and do business, just like it was for three hundred years before CTDOT decided it would be the perfect place for a highway bypass. That design remains a dangerous obstacle to residents who, for reasons of age, disability, or income, may not be able to drive a car. We made them a promise. The Broad Street Road Diet is, at bottom, the town making good on a promise we’ve already made to these neighbors, at no cost to property tax payers.

Please support the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project at the Special Town Meeting on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 p.m., and in the likely referendum in May.

When the Culture Wars Come to Town

This post is about politics. If, like me, you’ve been trying to limit your exposure to politics to shield your sanity, I totally understand; read no further.This post is about politics, and it’s unpleasant. If, like me, you’ve been trying to limit your exposure to politics to shield your sanity, I totally understand; read no further.

The recent doxxing of our mayor is not an isolated incident. It is part of a pattern of lying, political intimidation and bad faith discourse that has characterized the Broad Street debate. A pervading sense of misplaced anger, entitlement, and suspicion of the most basic processes of civil society has seeped from MAGA Republican politics into our town. The way to banish this kind of toxic politics is to vote against it, to show definitively that Windsor won’t be intimidated by lying and bullying.

I still believe that the Broad Street project should not be partisan, or even political. We are trying to address a safety issue. The first Council votes on the project were, in fact, bi-partisan in favor. Unfortunately, however, projects like this have officially been added to the list of Culture War issues, as detailed in Council member Naeem’s recent piece. True to form, the local Republican Party’s response to the Broad Street project in Windsor has been, in a word, strange. A recent exchange in the Town Council Chambers encapsulates the party’s approach:

Council Member Will Pelkey, “I object to the motion.”

Mayor Black-Burke, “What is your objection?”

Mr. Pelkey, “I just object.”

This would have been a good opportunity for Mr. Pelkey to raise his apparent concern that town meetings are inconvenient for many voters due to the busy schedules we all face, and perhaps offer an alternative date. Instead, he and the Republican caucus waited until spring break, when they knew their Democratic colleagues would be out of town with their families, to call an emergency meeting with no public comment, adamant that the Special Town Meeting vote from a Tuesday to a Saturday.

The actual point of all of this, of course, was to distract from the safety problem at the core of this project, inject confusion into the process, and score cheap political points through parliamentary antics. And so, rather than a discussion of how to improve safety for Windsor Center’s residents, or the impracticalities imposed on voters by Windsor’s charter, we had four confused members of the Town Council staring at each other, without a quorum, and not sure what the rules were for the stunt they were trying to pull off.

In the end, Republicans wanted the question to be on the same ballot as the budget referendum, which takes place on a Tuesday.

The entire Broad Street debate has been like this; residents asking for help, voters trying to understand what is being proposed and what the prescribed process is, while the Republican caucus and their allies throw a series of temper tantrums and ignore residents’ description of the dangers they face walking in their own neighborhood. The recent Special Town Meeting was true to form as local residents described the harrowing experience of being hit by cars and many close calls, while opponents offered impractical alternatives, conspiracy theories of their neighbors’ motives, and complaints about the theoretical possibility of non-citizen voters.

The first inkling of how strange this debate would be occurred in January of last year during the first Town Council meeting on the Broad Street project, when Council Member Pelkey went on a 15-minute rant about how the project’s scope was, get this, TOO SMALL! According to Mr. Pelkey, we should move the curbs to expand the sidewalks, get rid of on-street parking, close every driveway on Broad Street, and close the library parking lot. And, of course, we should delay accepting outside grants for the project because these BIG ideas would require years of additional study and discussion.

Mr. Pelkey’s expansive view changed dramatically when it came time to actually vote. In one of the more despicable acts I’ve ever seen from a public figure, Mr. Pelkey used parliamentary antics to bully a man fighting cancer. Mr. Pelkey repeatedly called for roll call votes, trying to catch a fellow Council member unconscious when he was forced to zoom into the meeting from a hospital bed due to the Town Charter’s voting rules.

Mr. Pelkey went on to lie about police records on Broad Street, claiming in writing on March 6th, 2025, “According to data received from Windsor PD, these same streets recorded only 4 accidents since 2017, and zero deaths.” In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Windsor Police Department revealed that there were, in fact, 85 collisions in that area during the time period Mr. Pelkey specified, 16 of which resulted in injuries. Furthermore, the Police Department confirmed that it had not provided any data of this kind to elected officials or members of the public in the six months preceding the referendum. To be clear, this is a public servant knowingly lying about police records to make a political point. In many places in the US, this is grounds for removal from office. Unfortunately, Windsor’s Board of Ethics has no oversight over Council Members.

An even more exaggerated version of this claim was repeated by the political action committee Concerned Windsor Citizens in paid ads in the Windsor Journal the following day, “The fact is: No Pedestrian involved in accidents in the last 10 years! 4 Motor Vehicle accidents only in the last 10 years! […] Data provided by Windsor Police Department Records Office, 10 yr. data available.” The same ad was posted once as “Paid for by James Durant / Jeffrey Carter, Concerned Citizens,” and separately as “Paid for by Concerned Windsor Citizens” without proper attribution of the group’s treasurer. James Durant was subsequently elected to the Town Council on the Republican ticket along with Mr. Pelkey.

I wish I could tell you more about the relationship between these gentlemen and Concerned Windsor Citizens, but the PAC has never filed their legally required financial statements for this time period. What documentation does exist never mentions Mr. Durant or Mr. Carter as a treasurer, and does not show any donations to the group except for a donation in 2024 from the group’s president, Keith Samolyk. The only time I’ve ever seen Mr. Samolyk’s thoughts on the issue was a comment on a YouTube video that PACs should stay out of Windsor politics. Despite fines from the State Elections Enforcement Commission, we still don’t know who is funding Concerned Windsor Citizens or who paid for these ads in March of 2025.

Adding to the sense of paranoia and menace in local politics, Concerned Windsor Citizens also paid for an typo-laden ad in the run-up to the budget referendum last year that reads more like a ransom note than political messaging, “(Make Note of who has those Yes Signs as they are the One’s)”

The actual debate on the Broad Street project was (and remains) strange. We get lectures on budget discipline from public officials claiming agricultural exemptions for their financial services businesses. We get PAC presidents saying PACs are illegitimate. We get the political party run by a developer saying all developers are corrupt and can’t be trusted. We get Board of Education members calling for DOGE to scuttle the project. We get politicians saying politicians shouldn’t be involved in the political process. We get statements of “protecting democracy” while circumventing the town Charter to undermine our New England style town meeting: the very origin of American democracy.

We also get increasingly ludicrous claims about the project: The problem is both empty storefronts and ugly new store fronts. They’re turning the Center into North Hartford (yes, someone actually said that out loud). Broad Street is fine and we shouldn’t spend any money on it, but it’s not fine and we should spend more time and money researching the problem that doesn’t exist. We can’t risk drivers being inconvenienced by I-91 backing up 1-2 times a year, so we should remove the crosswalks that residents and visitors use 365 days of the year. Our multi-million dollar fire trucks can’t mount 3″ granite curbs. The bike lanes will kill the Shad Derby (which also causes traffic delays in the Center, by the waw). Just do enforcement, because paying more police officers out of our property taxes will (somehow? magically?) be cheaper than accepting grant money to pay for an infrastructure project. Also, don’t pass the budget so the police department has fewer resources to do the enforcement that we want them to do!

If this all sounds irrational, it is. The intensity of the debate on Broad Street spilled onto the street itself. Volunteer “YES” sign holders were regularly cursed at from passing vehicles, treatment especially directed at female volunteers. I had to file a police report when a truck brushed me as I was putting signs up in the Center and then ran three red lights as the driver sped up Poquonock Ave. Later, a spouse of a local elected Republican explained to me, in all seriousness, why someone might feel justified in attempting vehicular assault in the context of the referendum. When I raised these incidents in the Journal, then Republican Chair Len Walker accused me of “tone policing.”

More recently, opponents have taken to online harassment as an intimidation tactic. In addition to doxxing our mayor on Facebook, opponents have been combing through my LinkedIn pages and speaking engagements with Connecticut Main Street, publishing screenshots online, circling my name in red as if they’re getting to “the real story.” Sam Savelli, a former Republican candidate for constable, was one of the people posting this information about me in public forums.

In another unseemly episode, Mr. Savelli, a volunteer firefighter, posted a video of himself in official Fire Department uniform, lining up town-owned vehicles telling voters “this won’t work” and to “bear this in mind” when residents vote on the project, even though the video shows a clear path through the area he had marked out for the truck to get through. Not only did this show a profound lack of judgement, his presentation reaffirmed the pattern of public officials intentionally misleading voters. He does not say “fire trucks won’t fit”, because the demonstration clearly illustrates that fire trucks can get through the area even in less-than-ideal conditions. He offers no evidence of actual affected response times or vehicle damage on Route 187 in Bloomfield, Route 218 in West Hartford, Windsor Ave. in Wilson, Route 195 in Mansfield, or any of the numerous three-lane configurations in the state for a very simple reason: road diets do not affect emergency vehicle response times.

Frankly, as someone who has witnessed my child nearly being hit by a speeding car in a Broad Street crosswalk, fear mongering over the possibility of scratched truck tires is a bit much to swallow.

Fire trucks are public property, not playthings or props for political messaging. Mr. Savelli does not speak for the fire department, and it was yet another breach of public trust to use taxpayer resources for a ham-fisted attempt at electioneering.

Will Pelkey was aat it again recently, lying about the referendum results in a Town Council meeting while claiming a “a slight majority” had spoken against the project at the meeting, despite multiple people noting that, in fact, residents had spoken more than 2-1 in favor. Even in today’s climate of “alternative facts,” it is still breath-taking to experience a public official lying straight to your face about something you, and they, just witnessed first-hand.

Compare all of this noise to the simple solution. Windsor Center recognized a problem, organized, and spent years developing a plan; reduce the road from four lanes to two with a turn lane to reduce chaotic lane changes and slow down traffic.

To opponents of this project, we are not your enemy. We are your neighbors. We are asking for your help. We have nothing to gain but a safer street so that you, your neighbors, and visitors can safely enjoy our beautiful Center.

I appreciate not wanting a historic district to change visually. The stability of visual similarity over decades is reassuring and worth striving for. I can also appreciate that some residents are accustomed to using Broad Street as an alternative to I-91 and don’t want to be inconvenienced. That’s all fair, it just doesn’t override local residents’ desire for physical safety in their own neighborhood, and it certainly doesn’t excuse the pattern of lying, parliamentary antics, and intimidation opponents of the project have engaged in to make their point.

As strange as this all is, it’s a familiar playbook: claim to be the victim of some nebulous conspiratorial force while avoiding accountability for yourself, complain that the system is unfair while benefiting from it, complain about taxes and fiscal responsibility while engaging in “creative” tax reduction strategies, use the political system to bully anyone perceived as vulnerable, claim to be protecting elections by causing confusion, ignore campaign finance laws, use public resources as political props, wear ignorance as a badge of honor, and challenge anything that even hints that the 1950’s might not have been the apex of American civilization, even if people are hurt or killed by your policy choices.

Who does that remind you of?

Snow Clearance for Some

Each winter in New England brings its own set of challenges. While state and town crews work tirelessly to keep the roadways clear, this year’s heavy snowfall highlighted a significant gap in our snow removal program. Clearance of sidewalks and curb cuts has been uneven at best, leading to dangerous conditions for elderly and disabled residents long after snowstorms have passed.

Improperly cleared sidewalks create very real hazards for our elderly and disabled neighbors. Icy, uneven surfaces create dangerous conditions for everyone, especially for physically vulnerable residents. It was a common site in February to see people abandon the sidewalks entirely to walk on icy street shoulders. This is especially concerning in Windsor Center, where the town has sited public housing specifically for pedestrian access to the Center’s services and businesses. We place these residents here with the promise of a walkable community, but uncleared paths effectively trap them or force them into harm’s way.

This is the consequence of a complicated distribution of responsibility. Unlike road clearance, where the town takes full responsibility for snow removal and the police rigorously enforce a proactive parking ban, responsibility for sidewalk snow removal is diffuse. The relevant ordinance states that sidewalks on private property must be cleared within twelve hours of a snowfall. The Police Department can issue a fine for each day the sidewalk is not cleared, or Public Works can remove the snow themselves and bill the property owner for the cost. Failure to pay can even result in a lien on the property. The same is true for clearance of fire hydrants on private property.

In practice, however, consistent enforcement of this ordinance is difficult to maintain. It’s not always clear where the town’s responsibility ends and the property owner’s begins. Uniform enforcement would undoubtedly require additional resources to inspect relevant infrastructure and issue fines. The existing ordinances also assume every property owner is physically or financially capable of clearing their frontage, which is not always true. Neighbors help each other in isolated acts of kindness, but that can only go so far towards uniform clearance of transportation infrastructure, and any group organizing snow clearance volunteers faces the challenge of assuming the property owner’s liability in the event of an accident or fall.

The result is that pedestrian infrastructure remained inaccessible for months this winter. The curb cuts on Center Street, the very core of Windsor’s transportation-oriented development district, remained impassable to disabled residents until March 11th. After three days of unseasonably warm weather the accumulated ice finally melted and the sidewalks became ADA-accessible for the first time in almost two months.

These are growing pains. Windsor Center is gradually changing into a genuinely pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, to the benefit of local businesses and all Windsor residents. The neighborhood is attracting residents who, for a variety of reasons, may not want to (or be able to) drive a car. The existing systems for sidewalk snow removal are not up to the task, and we need to adapt. One way or another, we need to keep the sidewalks clear in the winter.

HB 8002

This piece appeared on Citizens for a Thriving Windsor's website on Dec. 10, 2025

Governor Lamont signed House Bill 8002 into law. If you are interested in the details, I would point you to Ginny Monk’s work at the CT Mirror. She has done excellent reporting on this bill throughout its tumultuous history.

While this bill is a milestone for Connecticut, it is less than what is needed. It eliminates the “fair share” portion of the original bill and replaces it with “housing growth plans.” In effect, Lamont vetoed the stick and agreed to the carrot. This is likely to leave zoning unaddressed in many areas of the state with high demand and underutilized capacity for additional housing.

Windsor

The bill is unlikely to have much of an impact on Windsor for two reasons. First is the good news: as a town, we are already making strides towards denser housing near transit. There’s always room for improvement, but Windsor’s political leadership and town staff are making a good-faith effort to address housing in town, and it shows.

Unfortunately, the second reason somewhat counteracts the first. The housing market is not confined to town or state borders. Towns in the same region with strict and permissive zoning suffer the same high housing costs. This bill is a good start, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem: many towns are unwilling to allow housing growth and there is little political will in the state to make them change.

On the plus side, this bill moves the state toward regional and state-wide housing planning. There are still incentives for towns to allow more housing near train and bus stations, “Work, Live, Ride.” There are still provisions for towns participating in Work, Live, Ride to allow conversion of commercial properties to residential. It continues to waive off-street parking requirements for new development up to 16 units. It’s not perfect, it’s not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Anger

Watching the debate in the General Assembly, the anger of the opposition was palpable. Unusually for Connecticut legislative sessions, opponents could not resist casting aspersions on the motives of the bill’s authors. They insisted they were ignored in the process, a pretty jarring claim given that the governor had vetoed a similar bill in response to their criticism.

What’s the disconnect? Why does the number of parking spots in new developments cause such a strong response? Why does the political party of business and cutting red tape bristle at allowing property owners to develop their land with less government intervention? Why the seething anger?

History

Escaping the Depression

It’s worth considering how we got here. The modern housing economy has its roots in the Great Depression. In order to avert a deflationary spiral, the federal government began guaranteeing loans. It didn’t take long for the 30-year mortgage to develop, something that local banks could never have offered previously at a reasonable interest rate. This stabilized the housing market during the Depression by artificially increasing demand through government-backed loans. This process also created a secondary market for the debt of these new mortgages, which began the process of financializing housing. The wealth created from housing debt began to spread throughout the entire economy.

There was real fear after WWII that the country would slide back into the Depression as the country unwound the war economy. To stave off this possibility, and to provide a benefit to vets returning from overseas, new borrowing instruments were created to allow veterans to buy homes with much lower down payments and interest rates. The boom in housing construction in the suburbs fueled private sector growth. Cars enabled low-density suburbs to function and provided a product for industries transitioning from war-time manufacturing. The federal government continued to facilitate this transformation through enormous road construction projects, which helped soften the blow of post-war spending reductions.

Entire neighborhoods were built to a “finished state” with all the amenities of the modern nuclear family could possibly need within a short distance… provided you purchased a self-propelled vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.

A New Way of Life

It’s hard to overstate how radical a departure this was from the ad hoc way towns and cities had developed for millennia. The effect was the aesthetic of small town republicanism without the actual rural economy. Money had to be made somewhere else and brought home to the suburbs. The newness and uniformity gave a sense of social and economic order that would reify the country’s social hierarchy, maintain the astonishing post-war prosperity, and defeat those godless commie bums through the might of our productivity and consumption. The overarching financial system was largely invisible to most people, in part due to its enormous complexity. Someone taking out a small business loan may well be indirectly borrowing from capital that was backed by their own mortgage debt. All of this was opaque to most people.

The new developments reflected the biases and prejudices of the society that created them. Many of the veteran benefits and financial instruments that helped fund suburban expansion were unavailable to women and minorities. The racial makeup of Hartford and surrounding towns is still heavily influenced by the red lines banks drew on maps denoting areas for “undesirables.” In these areas, loans would be issued at significantly higher interest rates, or denied entirely.

Towns competed for wealthier residents by zoning larger minimum sizes for lots, on the theory that this would increase the value-per-acre of land while also supporting services for fewer residents. The opposite has been the case; less dense development requires more utilities per taxpayer, and especially more services for housing types that attract families with school-aged children. The maintenance on these systems has become ever more expensive. Most towns now balance their budgets via deferred maintenance and external revenue from state and federal funding. Put another way, while most towns maintain a balanced annual budget, they don’t actually have the tax base to maintain the infrastructure they’ve built.

Multiple generations (mine included) grew up under this system with an unquestioning belief in suburban, car-based development as the guarantor of American prosperity. A house and a garage on a half-acre symbolized financial independence, stability, and a store of wealth to pass on to future generations. Cars became the embodiment of American individualism and the triumph of our ingenuity as a free people. The American identity became wrapped up in this development pattern as a way of life. It was, and still is, viewed by many as an unalloyed good.

Reevaluating

However, many people’s faith in this system has been shaken over the past two decades. The 2008 financial crash revealed how fragile the system is, and showed that taxpayers would carry the burden of this fragility. Over time, exclusionary zoning and subsidized credit slowly reduced housing supply and increased demand, thus raising prices. Those higher prices produced more debt as buyers stretched further to meet escalating prices.

Ownership of that debt created wealth that could be leveraged into all facets of the economy. And what if the loans that kept the whole system afloat were bad? We found out in 2008: our leaders decided it was better for the American public to bail out the lenders than to deal with the underlying causes of both the financial crisis and the housing shortage. A drop in housing prices now posed a risk to the entire economy.

But many have not shaken their faith in this system. They are convinced of the inherent goodness of suburban land use, or at least the aesthetics of the time period when the suburbs were built. They view cars and car ownership as drivers of prosperity. And they view any change to this system as deeply threatening. While this reaction can be baffling when the topic is something as seemingly technical as lane widths, if you consider the assumptions that go into the suburban mindset then you begin to see what is at stake for people who believe in this system; this development pattern is viewed as the substratum of the order, prosperity, and socioeconomic status that gives dignity to our lives. If we bear this in mind, we begin to glimpse some people’s deep attachment to the status quo, and their anger at anyone who might try to change it.

Proposed Solutions

What Doesn’t Work

Thus, many policy proposals to address the housing crisis are designed more to save the status quo than to address the underlying problems. A few that come up with some regularity:

Insert money at the point of purchase – Trump’s 50-year mortgage proposal and Kamala Harris’s $25K in downpayment support for first-time homebuyers have something in common: they both increase purchasing power (demand) without increasing supply, thus raising prices. Ironically, this inflationary pressure would be most acutely felt in the types of housing units needed by the types of borrowers these policies target; that is, starter homes and small family units. Put another way, these policies put upward price pressure on exactly the type of housing we need as affordable housing.

Public housing – I have yet to see a public housing proposal that details exactly how this type of housing would be built, where it would be built, and how it would be funded, so it would be unfair to pass judgement on whether a public housing plan could work. However, I do think it’s worth considering the government’s role in the housing market if public housing were to become the main method of dealing with the housing shortage. Public housing absent zoning and finance reforms is essentially the government saying it is going to keep restrictive housing policies while also deciding what and where new housing gets built to make up for the shortfall in supply. This is tiptoeing very close to a command economy. Given the scale of the crisis, I understand the impulse, and I can imagine a role for public housing in specific circumstances. But, in general, I would be hesitant to trust the entity largely responsible for creating the problem with solving it.

Build baby build – Should we continue to sprawl? The argument is tempting; if the problem is low supply, let’s make more. We know how to build greenfield housing, so let’s do it! The problem is the tax density issue I mentioned earlier. Single-family, 1/4 to 1 acre development alone is not financially sustainable in the long run. The infrastructure required to run a town that is developed on this model is more expensive than towns can charge in property taxes, so they rely on state & federal funds to make up the gap. Complete local self-sufficiency is neither practical nor desirable, but there must be financial stability somewhere in the system. If a development model results in the vast majority of towns not being financially solvent in the long term, then the development pattern doesn’t work. We need to build self-sustaining places that can then create the economic activity that sustains the less dense places nearby.

Moving Forward

So, how do we solve these interlocking problems? We can’t start over, and the suburbs aren’t going away. What do we do?

Very smart people have been thinking about this much longer than I have. Strong Towns has compiled a list of housing-ready policies that will help create density in existing neighborhoods, thereby making them more financially sustainable, while creating local jobs in the form of small-scale housing projects.

1. Allow conversions from single-family to duplex or triplex by right.

2. Permit backyard cottages in residential zones.

3. Legalize starter homes in all residential zones.

4. Eliminate minimum lot sizes in existing neighborhoods.

5. Repeal parking mandates for housing

6. Streamline approvals and permitting.

These policies are not a silver bullet, and local variation is likely needed. But they are more likely to work than the previously mentioned proposals because they allow us, homeowners and neighbors, to make decisions with our knowledge of local needs and the local market, all while catalyzing the local economy with small, locally-financed projects that employ local craftspeople.

In addition, Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn makes a compelling case that local government has a role to play in plugging the financing gap for housing projects that traditional banks won’t provide loans for; things like incremental home projects, or building a backyard cottage, or an addition for a relative.

And then there’s the issue of how to talk about these necessary changes. We should be clear about our priorities, the facts, and the history that got us here. We need to remind ourselves that the wider audience does not spend much time thinking about these issues. They are trying to understand these very complex ideas while holding the same assumptions most of us held at one time or another.

These are generational problems that will not be solved with one bill. They require questioning the status quo while simultaneously taking the time to understand its intricacies. There is a way out of the housing crisis, but we need to stare the problem directly in the face. We need both practical optimism and radical common sense.

The Modern Parenting Double-Bind

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal in September of 2025

It’s a strange time to be a parent. We are constantly warned of the dangers modern technology poses to our children. “Screen time” has leap-frogged stranger danger and junk food as this generation’s overarching parenting worry. It explains everything from childhood obesity to weaker academic performance to addiction-like behaviors to reduced social skills. Books touting the anxiety-inducing effects of children’s screen-filled, sedentary lifestyle regularly top best-seller lists. The message is everywhere: kids don’t play outside anymore, kids don’t ride their bikes to school, kids aren’t playing enough sports, kids are too fat.

A recent New York Times piece by David French is typical of the genre. In “How Did the Latchkey Kids of Gen X Become the Helicopter Parents of Gen Z?” Mr. French describes his idilic childhood of unsupervised play and family dinners. He concludes that more intact families will help solve the problem, and gently chides Gen X and Millenial parents to “back off a bit.”

This interpretation falls flat. Current parenting generations have lower divorce rates than their parents, which should have already solved the problem under French’s formulation. He also does not consider whether the “outside” he wants children to play in is physically safe for them, and he does not address the very real consequences parents face when they leave their children unattended.

Allowing a child to walk or bike somewhere invites the very real risk of a “good Samaritan” calling the police. And if the child is injured or killed while unsupervised, the unspeakable tragedy of losing a child might also come with a felony charge. A father in Charlotte, North Carolina was charged in June of this year with felony manslaughter when his 10-year-old son was struck and killed by a car on the way back from a Subway, less than a ten-minute walk from his home (the driver was not charged). Last year, police were called to a quiet suburban street in Louisville, Kentucky when an 8-year-old was spotted bicycling on the street where she lived. A mother in South Carolina was arrested in July of last year for letting her daughter play at a nearby playground while she worked because she could not afford childcare. A woman was arrested last November when her 10-year-old son was seen walking alone in “downtown” Blue Ridge, Georgia, population 370.

Image – road side memorial for Legend Jenkins, struck and killed by and S.U.V. in May of 2025.
Legend Jenkins was hit and killed by an S.U.V. when he stepped off this median on his way home from the Food Lion supermarket in Gastonia, N.C., in May. Credit, Kennedi Carter for The New York Times.

The good news is that children are underrepresented in pedestrian deaths in the U.S. The bad news is this is because parents are making a rational decision not to let their kids walk anywhere, thus the rate of pedestrian death spikes dramatically at 20 years old, when children can no longer rely on parents for every ride.

When children are allowed to walk in neighborhoods, they are more likely to be struck by cars than adults. This is due to their underdeveloped sense of the danger cars pose, as well as drivers overestimating their available stopping distance due to children’s proportionally smaller stature.

Some people attribute this withdrawal of youth from public spaces as a reaction to the risk of violence or abduction. Even during the height of latchkey kids in the 70’s and 80’s, abductions of children by strangers were quite rare; 100-300 per year, or less than 1% of total child abductions. The other 99% of cases are usually non-custodial parents, with the balance being acquaintances of the child’s family. These cases range from trauma to tragedy, of course, but the nature and prevalence of this threat to children has been vastly overstated for years. Put another way, child abduction is primarily a function of custody disputes and family conflict. The issue still dominates the child safety discussion, however, while the far greater threat killing thousands of children every year is right outside our doors: our roads.

Governmental response to parents’ concern about street safety can be puzzling at times. When parents say they would like their children’s ability to walk and bicycle taken into consideration in infrastructure projects, many elected officials trumpet that the arterial roadways crisscrossing residential neighborhoods are perfectly safe. These statements are invariably followed by arguments, also without evidence, that any change to the existing road network would create congestion. Imagine the FAA saying safety infrastructure improvements are impractical because they cause delays: “Faster trips for the survivors!”

Heavier police enforcement is often proposed as an alternative solution to safer street design, (sometimes, paradoxically, by the same public servants who say the streets are safe already). If enforcement alone were sufficient, the problem would have been solved by now. The evidence shows otherwise. This is because enforcement’s vaunted deterrent effect is temporary. Research consistently shows enforcement gains fade within weeks. Enforcement is also very expensive. Enforcement proponents often overlook that police prefer to be paid for their work, and unlike infrastructure costs that can be offset by grants, police are paid directly with property taxes out of towns’ annual operating budgets. Communities can pay once for lasting safety improvements, or pay endlessly for intermittent deterrence: not a difficult decision.

And of course, opinions differ on what a community should feel like, but when I picture a nice New England town to raise kids in, I don’t imagine main streets with four-lane highway bypasses with a heavy law enforcement presence.

Over the past 80 years, we built a transportation system that is lethal to children in their own neighborhoods. We then tell the parents of those children that they are personally responsible for any negative outcomes of that system. Parents have responded by not letting children walk or bike unattended, reducing children’s opportunities for recreation, face-to-face play, and personal autonomy, which parents are also blamed for.

By not letting kids walk anywhere, parents are forced to drive them everywhere. This puts an enormous strain on families, particularly those where all the adults are working full-time. It also exposes children to the risk of automobile crashes as passengers. Car crashes were the leading cause of death for children for decades, until gun deaths recently overtook them. Both causes are many times higher than any other cause of death for children, and they are both enormous global outliers.

Unlike gun control, transportation safety is often a local issue. Towns build and maintain many of their roads, and have influence on how state roads are managed within their borders. It may take time and patience, but this is something we can fix here in Windsor. We should commit to streets where children can walk and bike safely, whether to school or to a friend’s house. If it feels dangerous to imagine a 10-year-old biking near Windsor Ave, Matianuck Ave, Park Ave, Broad Street, etc, then the need is real. Parents shouldn’t have to agonize over screen-time vs letting their kids play outside. Let’s fix our streets so kids can just be kids.

An Unfortunate Result

The piece appeared in the Windsor Journal in March of 2025.

Hello neighbors,

The referendum to approve the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety project failed by a roughly 42% to 58% in a high-turnout vote. I won’t sugarcoat it—this was a decisive result. The only district that supported the project was Windsor Center were the project is actually located, which is both telling and deeply disappointing.

I know this might sound odd right now, but I am so grateful for this experience. It has been a privilege to meet new friends and deepen existing relationships as we did the hard work of democracy together. I never expected this level of individual support, and I am in awe of the time and effort our friends and volunteers poured into this effort.

One unexpected outcome of our outreach was how many people came up to me, introduced themselves, and shared their personal stories of being injured in this neighborhood—or of friends and family members who have been hurt or killed. Just last week, a man told me about his brother, who was struck by a drunk driver on Bloomfield Ave and died at just 12 years old. It’s difficult to recall that conversation without tearing up. I can’t express what an honor it has been for neighbors to share their pain and their stories with me. We hear them, and we are not giving up on them.

We expected some NIMBY pushback. What we didn’t anticipate was how this referendum would take on the tone of a culture war, nor the outright misinformation spread by elected officials and even a few town employees. Insults and epithets were hurled at residents putting up YES signs, with greater frequency at our female volunteers. I also had to file a police report after putting up YES signs in the Center. A pickup truck swerved out of the travel lane to miss me and the car my daughter was napping in by inches, and then immediately ran all three red lights going up Poquonock Ave from Broad Street. We knew this would be an uphill battle, given the national climate, to say nothing of legitimate local concerns over property taxes. But we did not expect people’s anger and resentment to override Windsor’s tradition of bipartisanship and civil discourse. This passed the Town Council in a bi-partisan vote, after all. It’s incredibly difficult to have a reasoned conversation about detailed infrastructure plans in the middle of a culture war debate. Opponents of this project took full advantage, stoking fear and anxiety to make sure a rational, empathetic discussion never had a chance.

I respect the outcome of the referendum, but I am deeply saddened by the incursion of callousness, misinformation and political intimidation into Windsor politics. Broad Street remains dangerous. Windsor Center residents will attest to this fact, and publicly available data proves them right. We will continue to advocate to address this dangerous roadway in our neighborhood, and we will not be silenced or intimidated.

This project has suffered a major setback, but the support from Windsor Center points to a clear need for safety improvements in this neighborhood, much as other neighborhoods have concerns about speeding on their own roads. The town took a maximalist approach to Broad Street, which we fully supported because of the obvious need and the complications of doing this kind of work while meeting CTDOT standards on state roads. Pedestrianization often starts small, however—with inexpensive materials like paint and temporary concrete planters. Some opponents of the project expressed a desire to see more temporary fixes attempted before a full configuration: they may well get their wish. We will continue to support large-scale projects, but we’ll also advocate for neighborhood-level safety improvements throughout Windsor, wherever residents are unsafe.

All of this is to say: the feedback from the voters on this specific project was clear and we respect the outcome of the referendum, but we’re not done advocating for a safer Broad Street. Safety is a process, not a destination. We still live here. Collisions still occur with startling regularity. People are hurt. Lives are put at risk.

This road is still a tragedy waiting to happen. I sincerely hope that reasonable opponents of this project were earnest when they said it was the specifics of this project’s design and funding that they objected to, and that we don’t have to wait for a tragedy to implement common sense road safety measures.

Thank you again to everyone who voted, and thank you to everyone who poured their time, energy and stamps into making Windsor a safer, thriving community.

Sincerely,
Keller Glass
President, Citizens for a Thriving Windsor

Roundabouts and Road Diet Myths

This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal in February of 2025.

There are several persistent myths about roundabouts and road diets that often lead to misunderstanding. Here are a few of the most common ones:

“Roundabouts are dangerous.”

Decades of research show that roundabouts are safer for all users, especially pedestrians, who experience a 50-80% reduction in collisions, serious injuries, and fatalities.

“Roundabouts are a proven safety countermeasure because they can substantially reduce crashes that result in serious injury or death.” — Federal Highway Administration

“Roundabouts are safer intersections for all users.” — Connecticut Department of Transportation

“Roundabouts are designed to improve safety for all users, including pedestrians and bicycles.” — U.S. Department of Transportation

“Traffic-calming measures, such as roundabouts and speed bumps, are engineering approaches designed to reduce vehicular speed and, thus, decrease the number of pedestrian crashes and associated injuries.” — American Academy of Pediatrics

This is especially true for single-lane roundabouts like those proposed in the Broad Street Project, which consistently show reductions in all crash types, unlike some multi-lane designs.

“Drivers won’t know how to use them.”

Connecticut drivers adapt quickly to roundabouts. The two roundabouts installed in Glastonbury have resulted in 40% and 60% reductions in crashes at those intersections, as discussed in the Hartford Courant article “Glastonbury roundabouts significantly reducing collisions after 2 years in operation.”

First Selectman Ed Chmielewski of Salem said of the roundabout installed at the intersection of state roads 82 and 85, “I think it has saved lives.”

Granby development director Abby Kenyon, reflecting on the roundabout installed at Route 202 and Notch Road in 2020 remarked, “the complaints have really died down; the feedback now is largely positive.”

Roundabouts are increasingly common in Connecticut, and contrary to some claims, Connecticut residents have proven themselves perfectly capable of learning how to navigate them.

“Roundabouts slow down emergency response times.”

Roundabouts are far less likely to become backed up than lighted intersections, enabling traffic to clear for emergency vehicles more quickly. “Studies by the Federal Highway Administration have found that roundabouts can increase the traffic capacity by 30 percent to 50 percent compared to traditional intersections.” — The Open Transportation Journal.

Because they are better able to handle unexpected traffic surges and prevent backups, emergency vehicles can move through more efficiently. In free-flowing conditions, fire trucks, ambulances, and police vehicles can pass through without stopping, unlike at a red light.

“The project is too expensive.”

Roundabouts and road diets are more cost-effective than signalized intersections. They reduce the need for police enforcement, as speeding is controlled by design rather than active monitoring. This frees up Windsor’s police force for more pressing duties.

Roundabouts also save on infrastructure costs. The three traffic lights on Poquonock Avenue in Windsor Center are due for replacement, an expense that could exceed $1.5 million. Roundabouts eliminate the need for costly signal maintenance and use no electricity, leading to long-term savings. They also remain operational during power outages, ensuring safer roads in winter storms.

Residents will also save money. Roundabouts reduce fuel consumption by cutting idling time at red lights, lowering both fuel costs and travel time. They decrease property damage from crashes and reduce medical expenses, lost wages, and insurance costs due to fewer and less severe collisions.

As for the town budget, the total project cost is $6 million, with $3 million already secured from federal funds and $1 million from state transportation grants. Windsor is actively pursuing additional grants to cover the remaining balance.

Even in a worst-case scenario where no additional funding is secured, the estimated cost per household would be about $3 per month over five years. While any tax impact is a serious consideration, this project will enhance Windsor’s financial resilience and ultimately pay for itself through long-term savings at the state, town, and individual level.

“Nobody bikes or walks, so there’s no need for a road diet.”

This argument is circular: “We built an unsafe road, so people don’t walk or bike, therefore we don’t need to make it safer.” The reality is that Windsor’s roads see fatal crashes almost every year. Just because residents make the rational decision to avoid walking or biking on unsafe streets doesn’t mean the town has no obligation to make those street safer.

Road diets consistently lead to increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic by making streets feel safer. This, in turn, boosts local economic activity. A prime example is Hamburg, NY, “Completed in 2009, the project has resulted in a 60% decrease in crashes and 90% decrease in serious injuries. Unexpected by the State, the project has also catalyzed far-reaching social and economic benefits for the village, which has seen a steady increase in population and public programming. These include a farmer’s market, outdoor movie nights, garden walks, a street music festival and other events.” — Project for Public Spaces

Local business owners were also thrilled with the project’s results, “Our entire village is transformed. Not a day goes by in my store I don’t hear about how everyone loves our village. This project fulfilled every expectation and then some.” — Laura Hackathorn, Village Trustee.

Both roundabouts and road diets improve safety, reduce crashes, and create more livable, business-friendly streets. While myths persist, the data overwhelmingly supports their benefits—they work, and they work well.

This project is about making Windsor a safer, more connected, and more vibrant community—while saving lives and money in the process. Please join me in voting YES for the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project on March 11.

Broad Street Project Goes to Referendum

[ a version of the piece appeared in
the Windsor Journal in February of 2025 ]

In a decisive vote Monday night, the Windsor Town Council approved the ordinance for the Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project with a 6-3 bipartisan majority, followed by a unanimous 9-0 vote to send the project to a public referendum on March 11, 2025.

The project has been decades in the making, driven by local residents and advanced through contributions from officials at every level of government. Discussions about improving safety and increasing foot traffic for local businesses began over 20 years ago with the Windsor Center Business Association, a group that later evolved into First Town Downtown. Despite strong local support, the project was repeatedly stalled by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT), which historically opposed town-led changes to state-owned arterial roads. The initiative was later incorporated into Windsor’s 2014 Transit-Oriented Development Master Plan and the 2025 Plan of Conservation and Development, adopted in 2015.

Momentum for the project increased when the state legislature granted towns greater authority over state roads, allowing Windsor to seek funding. State Rep. Jane Garibay worked tirelessly to secure necessary funds, while Congressman John Larson secured federal support. Town staff also obtained grant funding to cover the balance of the road diet portion of the project. In 2023, residents successfully advocated for the inclusion of roundabouts to align the project with CTDOT’s Complete Streets Plan, which saw renewed emphasis under Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto. Town Manager Peter Souza and Economic Development Director Patrick McMahon helped guide the project through extensive design revisions and many public meetings over the years.

During Monday’s meeting, the Democratic caucus reaffirmed its focus on safety and emphasized the importance of giving Windsor residents a direct say in the project. The Republican caucus largely agreed with that principle but voiced concerns about the timing and scope of the initiative.

Among the three opposing votes, Councilors Ron Eleveld and Will Pelkey previously stated that they do not oppose the project on its merits, but believe the public needs more time to evaluate its full scope. Mr. Eleveld also expressed concerns that American drivers struggle to adapt to changes in road design. Pelkey has further suggested expanding the project to include additional pedestrian improvements, such as extending the west sidewalk of Broad Street into the right-of-way, closing the public library parking lot, and eliminating most or all driveway entrances onto Broad Street. Councilor Len Walker, the ranking Republican member, has not publicly explained his opposition. However, at a public meeting last year, he questioned the design philosophy of pedestrian safety features, including pedestrian refuge islands, telling a civil engineer, “Good luck with that.”

During Monday’s meeting, Mr. Eleveld cited a Michigan Department of Transportation study indicating that roundabouts have, in some cases, led to an increase in the total number of crashes, while acknowledging that the same study showed a significant reduction in deaths and serious injuries compared to signalized intersections. The Broad Street roundabouts are designed as single-lane entries and exits, a configuration that CTDOT data shows can reduce total crashes by 40% and serious injuries and fatalities by as much as 80% compared to traditional signalized intersections. The Michigan study cited by Eleveld, “Evaluating the Performance and Safety Effectiveness of Roundabouts – An Update,” highlights the critical difference between single-lane roundabouts, which saw an 8% increase in crashes in Michigan, and multi-lane roundabouts, where crashes rose 123%—while both designs still significantly reduced severe injuries and fatalities. As stated in the first sentence on the The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) roundabout website, “Roundabouts are a Proven Safety Countermeasure because they can substantially reduce crashes that result in serious injury or death.”

Public comments on the project were largely positive, with supporters emphasizing the safety benefits and the potential increase in foot traffic for local businesses. Opponents raised concerns about potential tax implications, whether these projects are more suited for struggling Rust Belt cities, that the current configuration has failed to bring retail back, and the uncertainty of federal spending and its impact on funding. While concerns about the project’s impact on the town budget are understandable, further state funding remains a strong possibility. The notion that roundabouts and road diets are primarily used in Rust Belt towns is misleading—these design principles are standard in modern urban planning across industrialized nations. Supporters of the project agree that the current Broad Street layout is ineffective, which is why change is needed. As for federal funding uncertainty, turning down available funding now because the Supreme Court might overturn the Impoundment Act of 1974 would be a missed opportunity to improve local infrastructure.

Windsor Center has immense potential, but Broad Street remains a barrier to safety, economic activity, and community vibrancy. According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, Windsor averages about one crash per day, mostly on four-lane arterial roads. Broad Street alone sees about one crash per month—a concerning statistic for a district that depends on pedestrian activity. Statewide, nearly one person dies on Connecticut roads every day. Windsor has an opportunity to reduce that risk by implementing proven safety measures.

With the Town Council’s approval, the Broad Street Safety Project now moves to a March 11 referendum, where Windsor voters will have the final say. Absentee ballots will be available at Town Hall beginning February 18.

Please join me in making Windsor Center a safer, more vibrant place to walk, ride, and live.

Some Safety Is More First Than Others

[ This piece appeared in the
Windsor Journal in February of 2025 ]

The mid-air collision over the Potomac River this week is an unmitigated tragedy. As of this writing, all 67 people aboard both American Airlines Flight 5342 and the Army helicopter are presumed dead. The sudden loss of so many lives is horrifying and deeply saddening.

Tragedies like this—and far less severe aviation incidents—are always followed by rigorous investigations that lead to safety improvements. In South Korea, a recent crash that killed 179 people prompted the removal of many concrete structures near runways throughout the country. After the 2009 crash in Buffalo, New York, which killed 50 people, the FAA implemented sweeping changes, including stricter pilot fatigue rules, higher experience requirements, improved stall training, and a national pilot record database. Following last year’s Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 decompression incident, the FAA grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, and the NTSB launched a full investigation.

Because of these rigorous investigations and strict accountability measures, air travel remains remarkably safe, even in spite of high-profile disasters like Flight 5342. The death rate per mile traveled by air is thousands of times lower than that of passenger vehicle travel. It’s a modern marvel that people can spend a lifetime flying and experience such negligible risk. In fact, the paradox almost explains itself: air travel feels scary, so we refuse to accept injury and death as inevitable—and we go to enormous lengths to make it as safe as possible.

But this raises an important question: if we refuse to accept death and injury as a normal part of air travel, why do we accept it as a normal part of automotive travel?

The comparison is striking. I recently drove through Windsor Center and saw the aftermath of a serious crash at the intersection in front of Geissler’s. The car’s hood was caved in, windows shattered. No emergency responders remained. Traffic flowed around the wreck, drivers adjusting slightly to navigate past it. I did the same. It was a relatively unusual sight—but not shocking. There was no media coverage of the crash. If a public figure had been involved or if the crash had caused a major traffic jam, maybe the news would have paid attention. But as it was, the incident passed unnoticed. Perhaps police issued a citation, but no one examined whether the intersection’s design played a role, whether vehicle visibility issues contributed, or whether both drivers had a clear instruction on right-of-way rules during their driver safety course. There was no systemic review—because we, as a society, don’t expect one. Car crashes are just a fact of life: they are banal.

The U.S. sees 46,000 auto-related deaths per year—the equivalent of an American Airlines Flight 5342 disaster happening every 12 hours. Every two months, we lose as many Americans to car crashes as we did in the entire Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Vulnerable populations—children, the elderly, the unhoused, and people with disabilities—are disproportionately affected. The deadliest day of the year for children, by far, is Halloween as hundreds of kids are hit by cars while trick-or-treating in their own neighborhoods. But these tragedies rarely make the news. The NTSB does not spring into action every time someone is struck in a crosswalk. Departments of transportation do initiate systematic reviews when people die in car crashes. We simply mourn, care for the injured, and move on.

Connecticut is not immune. As of this writing, someone has died on our roads every single day of 2025. Windsor is no exception either. According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, we experience traffic accidents almost daily and lose roughly one resident per year to auto-related deaths. The most serious crashes happen on four-lane arterial roads, but even local streets see their share of serious injuries. The sections of Poquonock Avenue and Broad Street under consideration in the Broad Street Safety Project have seen more than one crash per month over the past decade.

We do not accept this level of risk in any other part of our lives. And what makes our indifference even more striking is that these crashes don’t happen in private spaces. They happen on our roads—our public property. The only comparable cause of accidental death in America is gun violence. Unlike many states, Connecticut has taken a common-sense public health approach to gun regulation, leading to lower firearm deaths per capita than many other states, and less than half that of our automotive death rate.

Windsor has a rare opportunity to take meaningful action. Every design element in the Broad Street Safety Project is backed by decades of research showing benefits across the board. These projects have been proven to increase property values, boost sales tax revenue, spur development, lower municipal maintenance costs, reduce fuel consumption, lower insurance costs, reduce harmful air particulates, and shorten driver travel times. Towns from Pasadena to New Britain, Grand Rapids to Edgewater have demonstrated that well-planned traffic calming and pedestrian safety improvements lead to more vibrant, resilient, and economically sustainable communities.

But ultimately, this is about saving lives. If we do nothing, more people will be severely injured—or killed—on Broad Street, given the current crash rate and the decades-long lifespan of projects like this.

Do I wish the NTSB took automotive deaths as seriously as plane crashes? Yes. Do I wish the Connecticut DOT was more responsive to local safety concerns? Absolutely. But the reality is that these improvements happen at the local level. I trust the FAA and NTSB to take the tragedy in Washington seriously, and to take meaningful action to keep such tragedies from happening in the future. But if we want the same consideration for the tragedies we experience on our own roads—if we want a safer Broad Street and a more vibrant Windsor Center—we have to make it happen ourselves.

Please join me in taking this small step toward a safer country—and a huge step toward a safer Windsor.

Broad Street is Dangerous

[ This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal on December 18, 2024 ]

Several years ago, I sat down at The Bean with a cup of coffee and a laptop to write a letter to our town manager, urging him to consider bike lanes in the design of the Broad Street reconfiguration (commonly called the road diet). A few paragraphs in, a loud bang outside was followed by sirens. A man on a bicycle had been struck by a car at the intersection of Maple Avenue and Broad Street. An ambulance soon arrived to take the bicyclist to the hospital, leaving behind bits of broken headlight, the man’s bike, and blood splatter on the pavement.  
 
Scenes like this are all too familiar in the Center. Every day, ten thousand cars drive down Broad Street. Seven out of ten don’t stop in the Center—they’re just passing through. About one-third of these drivers exceed the 35 mph speed limit. That may not sound especially fast, but it has serious safety implications for our neighbors. Higher speeds mean drivers have less time to react, leading to more accidents. Multiple travel lanes encourage passing, speeding, and chaotic traffic flow. Unsurprisingly, Broad Street and other state roads in Windsor Center see dozens of crashes each year, many involving serious injuries.  
 
Higher speeds also lead to deadlier accidents. For pedestrians struck by cars, the chance of surviving decreases by 40% when the car’s speed increases from 30 mph to 40 mph. This is the environment many of our neighbors must navigate daily. Residents cross Broad Street for basic services: to visit the post office, file permits at Town Hall, or pick up prescriptions. Children cross the road to reach the Windsor Public Library after school. Families in the Center who walk their children to daycare on Palisado Avenue must traverse 50-foot crosswalks at busy intersections where cars can turn right on red, even during walk signals.

If we do not act, this problem is likely to get worse. Cars are getting bigger, and drivers are becoming ever more distracted. We can’t police our way out of this problem, and it won’t resolve itself. The core issue is the road’s design. It was built to move vehicles through town as quickly as possible, and it’s doing exactly that. Residents and visitors injured in crashes, parents afraid to let their children walk or bike in the Center, disabled residents forced to cross dangerous intersections for basic necessities; all are collateral damage of a design that prioritizes vehicle speed over our safety.  
 
We can do better. The Town Council is currently considering The Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project, which includes essential safety upgrades: reducing Broad Street from four lanes to two with a center turn lane, bike lanes, roundabouts, and sidewalk bump-outs with shorter crosswalks. These design elements have been studied extensively for decades at both the federal and state levels. The evidence is clear and overwhelming: these changes save lives and improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike.  
 
The town’s top priority must be the physical safety of the people who live here. Please vote in favor of the The Broad Street Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety Project on February 11th, 2025.