January 14, 2016

Old Lyme Legislators Seek to Make I-95 Safer by Lowering Speed Limit

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In the wake of multiple accidents along I-95 between exits 70 and 72, area legislators have written to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to request that the speed limit be reduced by 15 miles per hour along that stretch of highway.

Rep. Devin Carney and Sen. Paul Formica, who both represent Old Lyme, wrote to DOT on Jan. 13 to formally request the speed limit to be lowered from 65 to 50 miles per hour.

“Accidents are happening at an alarming rate,” said Sen. Formica. “Our goal is to help prevent tragedies. Getting motorists to slow down is an immediate solution.”

The lawmakers wrote that the speed limit change should start at the beginning of the Baldwin Bridge before exit 70 and go through to the area where the speed limit already becomes 50 (by exit 74 in East Lyme). Carney and Formica added that the lower speed limit could even extend to the I-95/395 interchange.

If DOT approves their suggestion, the lawmakers urged that there clear signs be installed to warn drivers of the upcoming speed change.

“This stretch has been called ‘most dangerous in the state east of the Connecticut River’,” Rep. Carney said. “There are many accidents along this stretch, year-after-year, and some have resulted in deaths. Those tragedies will continue unless we take action.”

On Aug. 15 last year, two women were killed along this stretch of highway. On Jan. 11, two women were killed in another accident. A horrific tractor trailer accident occurred Jan. 12.

“This speed limit reduction would help improve the safety of our citizens, first responders, and commuters/tourists who frequently drive through our region, not to mention reduce traffic along 95 after an accident and, as a result, along Route 1 in Old Lyme and East Lyme,” Carney and Formica wrote to DOT. “It is a piece of a larger issue that will also take lane expansion and extra police to fix, but the one problem area we can change now is the speed reduction component. We feel the state must do something or else there will continue to be unnecessary fatalities and accidents.”