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06/06/2018 08:00 AMIngham Hill Road’s ending has presented challenges for school bus drivers for many years. To reverse direction and go back downhill, buses have had to complete a back and forth maneuver called a multi-point or “K” turn. Fortunately, that may soon change. Town leaders are moving forward with a plan to redesign the road end to make it safer for buses and other large vehicles.
On May 30, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) voted to authorize an appropriation of $24,900 for the town engineer to develop engineering drawings and specifications for a new turnaround for the Ingham Hill Road ending. The BOS proposed taking the funds from an off-budget account into which the proceeds of the 185 Bokum Road property sale were deposited.
“The town would then have a shovel-ready project,” said First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr., at the May 30 BOS meeting. “It is primarily a project [to improve] road safety.”
Once the engineering is complete, Fortuna suggested that the cul-de-sac construction—earth-moving plus the laying-down of asphalt—could possibly be done by the town’s Public Works Department.
Fortuna said that a family with a school-aged child now lives at the end of Ingham Hill Road, which makes improving the safety of the road ending for buses especially important.
When ownership of the nearly thousand acre Preserve property to the Town of Old Saybrook and the State of Connecticut on April 30, 2015 transferred, the town became the owner of the single-family dwelling house and lot at 185 Bokum Road. As part of the agreement, the town was given the right to sell that parcel, which abutted the eastern edge of The Preserve.
The 185 Bokum Road parcel was put up for public auction by the town in 2017. The tenant of the house at that time, Chris Reed, successfully won ownership with his bid of $200,000. A Town Meeting of June 12, 2018, agreed to sell the home to Reed for his bid price. The revenue from the sale went into an off-budget town account that the BOS has now proposed be tapped for this engineering project.
In a second motion, the BOS approved an appropriation of $35,000 to pay for engineering on a parking area at the Ingham Hill Road trailhead entrance to The Preserve open space. For this project, which benefits Preserve users, Fortuna again proposed tapping funds in the 185 Bokum Road sale account.
The Ingham Hill Road Preserve trailhead, near the end of Ingham Hill Road, currently has an undeveloped packed dirt area that can accommodate about three or four vehicles.
“We would apply to TPL [the Trust for Public Land] for the construction costs for this parking area [for] access to The Preserve,” said Fortuna.
TPL has funds set aside in an account to be used in support of Preserve stewardship projects like this one.
Both of these funding requests—$24,900 for engineering the Ingham Hill Road turnaround and $35,000 for design drawings for the Ingham Hill Road Preserve trailhead parking—were to go to the Board of Finance for review earlier this week on June 5 (after press time). If the BOF approves them, they would then go to Town Meeting for final approval.