Addendum: I found a video, albeit a shaky one, of the Long Hill (section of Trumbull), fire department responding to a call on Edison Road in Trumbull. What is unique about this video is that the fire trucks were already at Trumbull Shopping Park when the call came in. You can see the trucks turn right and go up that LONG drive that connects to Trumbull Shopping Park. You see it is THREE LANES and very long and very wide.

 The trucks turn left towards Trumbull. The video is as I said shaky, but you can see the bridge over the Merritt Parkway that the state widened a few years ago. It is THREE LANES with one dedicated turn lane onto the Merritt Parkway. Main Street is TWO LANES in Trumbull and in Bridgeport going to the mall and from the mall. Take note on how WIDE everything is.

Also Trumbull has the Long Hill Firestation, where this unit is located about 1/4 mile away from the mall on the Madison Avenue side of the mall entrance. There is another fire station in Bridgeport on their side of Madison Avenue about a mile away. I believe there is yet another station up on Main Street about two miles away near the Board of Education building. There are at LEAST THREE STATIONS possibly four. Cheshire will have to rely on that one station in Southington. Not good.

Here is the video:

LONG HILL FIRE DEPT RESPONDS TO A CALL. TRAVELING FROM TRUMBULL MALL. 

As I indicated in my last post, I am featuring Westfield Shoppingtown aka: Trumbull Shopping Park (or as us natives to the area will always refer to it) Trumbull Mall in Trumbull Connecticut.

I have provided a link to an interesting blog that highlights different malls throughout the country. This link is to Trumbull Shopping Park which I believe opened in 1964, it was actually before Lafayette Plaza, I thought it was after. I think that date is way too early, I  will try to find out.

I hope you go to the links and read the comments. Some of the information on the website I know is wrong and some of the commenters correct it. Trumbull Mall was NEVER an outside mall. Milford Post was originally an outside (like a Lifestyle Center), set up, in fact some parts of the Canton Lifestyle Center reminded me of the old Milford Post Center believe it or not.  I think this blogger is mixing up Milford with Trumbull, especially with the dates of construction.

Also take note near the bottom of the bloggers comments that there is some sort of plan in the works for an “open air” shopping center past Exit 48. Can you imagine?

The mall was built by Tom Frouge and expanded in 1978. I actually worked at that mall: I worked in Korvettes Dept Store. I found an OLD picture of E.J. Korvettes  but it is very grainy so I won’t bother running it.

Westfield (which is an Australian Company) Shoppingtown in Trumbull has 5,000 parking spaces and like Clinton Crossing a few days ago on Black Friday of this year, I have see ALL of these spaces taken. I went to Trumbull Mall about three years ago when I was working in Fairfield and I could NOT find one space-even in their parking “garage.”

 I even recall years back on Black Friday and a few days before Christmas, especially Christmas Eve, that entire mall parking area filled and people resorting to parking on the side of the driveway that leads into the mall; on the grass, everywhere you could park a car-it was parked on. If people could have parked on top of each other’s cars, they would have. But that was the holiday season. The rest of the year, the parking lot is busy but you can park quite easily.

The Clinton Crossing parking disaster which was highlighted in a recent New Haven Register article, in which the retailers, fearful of a weak holiday season, highly promoted a sort of “midnight madness” sale and boy did they ever get a response. People parked on streets, in other businesse’s parking areas, on lawns, everywhere.

I guess it got so bad that the Clinton Police Department had to contact the Clinton Crossing management. This is because they ran a special sale that ran from midnight to 10 a.m. in the morning.

 Now everyone likes a sale, especially before the holiday season. And retailers, as I mentioned above, are really pushing it this year because of high fuel prices. They want to ensure some sort of a profit in case sales bottom out midway through the holiday season, which might happen.

Anyone who knows retail, knows that most retailers are in the red until the holidays. They have to make their money within several weeks and a few weeks after the holidays or they are kaput in plain English.

Now, what do you all think is going to happen to Cheshire when this Lifestyle Center opens its doors for the first time? Or at the holiday season when these sales start at midnight and run all day and all night?

Will you all be content to sit in traffic? Maybe you will. This Lifestyle Center does not bother me personally because I am used to traffic, living in Fairfield County most of my life: and I grew up in Bridgeport which had mixed use everywhere.

But let’s face it, Rt. 10 in Cheshire can not handle any more traffic.

Case in point, the other night I was coming off I-691 at Exit 3 when I noticed gridlock. The traffic was backed up on Rt. 10 both sides, north and south and on the exit ramp. The light turned green and I could not turn onto Rt. 10. Vehicles were stuck in the middle of the road-no one could move, Why? A police car had it lights on from either a traffic stop or an accident.

 I don’t know. It could have been a disabled motorist. It might have been a traffic stop. It was a DISASTER. Now I am not saying traffic stops should not be made-not at all, but be prepared everyone, because traffic will not move because people have to “Looky Loo” and they are afraid to pass the cop or blow their horn.  I think it must have been a traffic stop because right after I finally got on Rt. 10, the cop car pulled out into traffic, then of course everyone REALLY slowed down.

I can remember a few years ago traveling to Fairfield to the Black Rock Congregational Church for a holiday concert. The church hired a cop to direct traffic. BIG MISTAKE. The cop was trying to direct the cars in an orderly fashion when some of the people in the line I was in, decided they’d had enough  and would not wait anymore and started blowing their horns at the cop and yelling at him. After several seconds of that, the people just started going around the cop and ignoring him. 

 You would NEVER see that here. I miss it so!!

And as far as I-691 goes, the traffic starts slowing BEFORE Exit 4 which is Southington for some reason, speeds up a bit before Exit 3 and then continues on.

I can bet my life that when construction starts on the Lifestyle Center, which you will be able to see from I-691, that the Looky Loos will practically come to a complete stop to see it or stare at it wondering “what is going on over there” and not see the car stop in front of them and have accident after accident. I know it.

To get back to Trumbull Mall, the traffic backs up on that exit ramp (Exit 48) off of the Merritt Parkway, which is really the only way to get there unless you want to travel miles out of your way cutting through the back roads of Trumbull. That exit ramp is four lanes: two turning left onto Main Street towards the Mall and two turning right towards Trumbull Center.

The exit ramp (Exit 3) off I-691 is only two lanes: one lane to turn left towards Cheshire and one lane to turn right towards Southington. If the powers that be do not have a dedicated lane to go into that Lifestyle Center: all I can say is pack your overnight bag because you are going to be in the car a LONG TIME.

Now Trumbull Mall also has several major arteries that connect into the mall. Main Street: Old Town Road: Madison Avenue and Park Avenue.

 Main Street near the Mall and all the way up from Bridgeport is TWO LANES. Park Avenue is one lane but it is a boulevard and VERY WIDE and they do NOT GO 25, its more like 55!!

 I don’t know how those Sacred Heart University students cross Park Avenue from their dorm without flying over a car hood.  Amazing.

 That is mixed use to the max. A 10 story dorm right next to a single family home on the Bridgeport side of  Park Avenue, because zoning permits this use in Bridgeport and the university took advantage of it. Nice!!

 I hate to be living next to that dorm on a Saturday night. Well you want mixed use, this is how it can morph into something you never imagined. Go take a look at it one weekend. Then go drive this weekend or any holiday weekend on the Merritt Parkway south and try to get off Exit 48 without your car sticking out onto the Merritt Parkway. Say your prayers you do not get sideswiped: and as I stated in an earlier post, the state WIDENED THAT BRIDGE and traffic is still snarled.

Unlike Cheshire’s proposed Lifestyle Center, Trumbull Shopping Park has TWO MAIN ENTRANCES. One on Main Street, which gets the bulk of the traffic from Trumbull and Bridgeport which has NO MALL. 

But believe it or not, if you go up to Exit 47, Park Avenue exit off the Merritt, turn left and then left again at the traffic light onto Old Town Road, then at that traffic light turn left onto Madison Avenue, you can enter Trumbull Mall with little or no traffic backup.  Most of the traffic seems to enter through Main Street. Again, Old Town Road is one lane but very WIDE and people DO NOT DO 25 mph!!

I know when that Apple Valley Mall was being considered in the mid 1980’s I remember hearing something about going in on it with Southington, which was going to provide another entrance or exit from their end. I think Cheshire better look into another entrance or if that is not feasible, at least another way to exit.

Mass transit should also be utilized, but I am sure this will not be a popular idea with the town government. W/S should at least provide a few shuttle buses to travel around Cheshire picking up people and bringing them to the Lifestyle Center and around town to other shopping locations as I mentioned in an earlier post.

All I can say in my heart is I sincerely hope Cheshire does not panic like Trumbull did. You know what happened when Lafayette Plaza closed and people started to come to Trumbull Mall. There is always some crime at retail establishments but Trumbull I believe panicked.

That is when the problems started: the targeting-the backlash from minority groups from Bridgeport who felt they were being targeted. The Department of Justice investigation. LEARN from this Cheshire. Be careful. Be smart.

 Here is the link to Trumbull Mall, my favorite mall in Connecticut. I love Trumbull and I did almost move there about 10 years ago but the house we wanted to buy was too expensive and my husband really wanted to stay in Cheshire.

I know what some of you are thinking!! Oh TOO BAD!! Whatever. You are stuck with me for at least a few more years!!

http://thecaldorrainbow.blogspot.com/2007/01/westfield-shoppingtown-trumbull.html