In high school, one of her brother's friends was killed in a crash atop the hill, in a spot still marked by daffodils in the spring.
More recently MacDonald, 43, says she's witnessed on several occasions cars "going flying" past school buses stopped on the road to take her two children to school. Nor has the installation of electronic signs displaying drivers' speeds back at them done much to get people to slow down.
"This is certainly a road where people are not respecting the speed limit," MacDonald said. "I'm surprised I haven't seen more accidents, to be honest with you."
In an effort to address the constant speeding on Baldwin Hill and two other locations in town, Washington officials are preparing to deploy automated cameras along country roads to capture pictures of the speedsters and send them a ticket in the mail. The new program starts next month.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation signed off on Washington's plan on Monday, according to an agency spokesman. The town beat out applications from a pair of much larger cities — Stamford and New Haven — to become the first municipality in the state approved to use automated cameras to enforce traffic laws. A one-year pilot program limited to active work zones on interstate highways issued more than 700 fines in 2023, according to DOT.
Both town leaders and local residents concede that Washington, with a population of 3,646 spread out across five villages in the Litchfield Hills, is a surprising candidate to be pioneering the technology.
"Obviously we're a small town but speeding is the number one [source] of complaints my office gets," said Washington's First Selectman James Brinton.
When debating whether to give municipalities the authority to enforce traffic laws with automated cameras, a number of lawmakers and civil rights activists raised concerns about the spread of government surveillance and the potential disparate impact of such systems when deployed in lower-income and minority communities.
In order to alleviate those concerns, the law signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in 2023 was written to require that towns submit plans for DOT approval before they can begin using red light or speed cameras. Those plans must be renewed every three years, during which time towns must submit reports on the number of fines issued and revenue they collected to both the DOT and state lawmakers.
While local leaders all over the state jumped up at the idea of utilizing cameras to calm busy streets, the process of obtaining the state approval slowed their efforts to a crawl.
It took roughly six months for DOT officials to draft their own set of rules for municipalities to follow. Those rules require towns to submit written justification for each location where they plan to deploy cameras, including traffic patterns and history of crashes. Officials are also prohibited from placing more than two camera systems in census tracts with the highest concentration of poverty.
Just three towns have since submitted completed applications to DOT's Office of State Traffic Administration, according to spokesman Josh Morgan. In addition to Washington's, Stamford's plan was sent back with comments and New Haven's plan — received last week — is under review, Morgan said.
"They gave us quick, little touch-up comments that made it very helpful along the way as we're working to refine our application," said Luke Buttenwiser, Stamford's Transportation Planner. The city is seeking to install speed cameras in school zones, he added, and is aiming to have its system live prior to the start of the fall semester in 2025.
Washington, with its mostly white population and reputation as a woodsy retreat for wealthy New Yorkers, had an easier time showing that its placement of cameras would not burden any marginalized communities, Brinton acknowledged. In addition to Baldwin Hill Road, the two other sites selected by the town are on rural stretches of Old Litchfield Road.
The town only has one stop light, which Brinton says officials opted not to enforce with cameras.
"When you say to me Washington, I immediately say, 'OK, that wasn't where I thought we would start,'" said state Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, an early skeptic of automated cameras who ultimately supported the bill after stricter guidelines were put in place. "But, you know, a lot of the things that we do often roll out in ways that aren't the way you would think about them. What's most important is to see what the roll out is once you hit those larger municipalities."
To get started, the town paid $28,000 to purchase its first camera from Dacra Tech, a technology and software company based in Illinois. In addition to analyzing the images captured by their cameras and sending out tickets, the company will keep $10 from each fine: $50 for a first-time violation and $75 for subsequent violation along with a $15 processing fee, the highest amount allowed under the law.
Dacra Tech has also offered to provide two additional cameras for no up-front cost, Brinton said, on the condition they get an additional $3 from each ticket issued from those devices.
The company did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Revenues, Brinton said, were the last thing on his and other Washington officials' minds when they voted to use cameras to catch speeders.
He noted that the town has two officers — a resident state trooper and a municipal constable — to patrol 93 miles of roads, many of which are rural and have narrow shoulders on which people like to walk and bike. There have been 289 crashes in Washington over the last three years, including one fatality, according to the University of Connecticut's Crash Data Repository.
In accordance with state law, anyone caught speeding in the first 30 days the cameras are in operation will only be issued a warning. Additionally, Brinton said officials plan to put out notices on the town's website and in emails to residents warning them of the launch of the camera traps.
"We're trying to give everyone the opportunity to slow down," he said.
Once a car has been flagged by the cameras, the fine is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle, who has the option to appeal. Both the town and Dacra Tech are required to destroy any personally-identifiable information obtained by the camera within 30 days of the fine being paid or the resolution of an appeal.
Still, the cameras remain divisive among many drivers, both locally and across the country.
Groups such as the National Motorists Association remain staunchly opposed to the use of automated enforcement, which they argue can be faulty and used to pad local revenues. Others, including the American Automobile Association, have recommended certain guidelines for communities to utilize cameras to increase safety, while preventing abuses.
According to the Governor's Highway Safety Association, at least 19 states have approved the use of cameras to enforce speeding laws, with several more allowing them at red lights. Meanwhile, nine states have passed laws prohibiting the use of automated cameras.
Scott Lynch, a 52-year-old contractor from New Milford who is working on a home adjacent to one of the proposed camera sites, was indignant when told of the plan on Thursday afternoon.
"It's an infringement on your rights," Lynch said, comparing the technology to the omnipresent artificial intelligence of dystopian movies. "Hasn't anyone seen "2001 a Space Odyssey?" It's a terrible idea."
© 2024 The News-Times (Danbury, Conn.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
