I-95 traffic cameras may help first responders

07/17/2007

Ed Stannard and Associated Press , Register Metro Editor

A leader of a Fairfield County regional planning group believes the cameras on Interstate 95 should be used to help towns' emergency personnel assess traffic crashes. A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation said Monday, however, that the cameras were installed to help the DOT manage traffic problems and aren't always helpful to firefighters and ambulance crews.

Weston First Selectman Woody Bliss, chairman of the South Western Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, said lower Fairfield County town officials are demanding more access to images and may oppose a $40 million state plan to replace the cameras in an upgrade.

"It's inexcusable that this traffic information is not available to first responders in the towns," Bliss said. "It needs to be an integral part of the design of the new cameras."

About 100 cameras provide state police and the DOT with views of traffic jams, accidents and other highway problems and emergencies. Feeds are monitored at DOT offices in Newington and state police Troop G in Bridgeport. They can be seen at www.ct.gov/dot.

The still images, updated every five minutes, are available to anyone with Web access.

Norwalk Fire Chief Denis McCarthy said municipal first responders need access to the images because information called in during an accident is often incorrect.

Kevin Nursick, a DOT spokesman, said Monday the project is 90 percent paid for with Federal Highway Administration money and changing their function would require the agency's approval.

"The intent of these cameras is for incident management," Nursick said. "They are designed and built and geared towards being used by DOT for that specific purpose."

He said the "bottom line" for the DOT is to "keep traffic moving and to get it moving as quickly as possible" while first responders may be looking for a direct view of an accident. "What they are interested in might not be what the DOT is interested in," Nursick said.

Judy Gott, executive director of the South Central Regional Council of Governments, composed of mayors and first selectmen from Milford to Wallingford to Madison, said the group gave its approval to the state's upgrade plan in June.

Gott said the COG's member towns are working with the DOT to improve response to highway accidents.

McCarthy and Robert McGrath, chief of Stamford Fire and Rescue, said the DOT feed is not in real time and that views of serious accidents often are blacked out.

Nursick said such blackouts are controlled by state police so the public won't see seriously injured people. It would require completely new infrastructure to give towns unblocked direct feeds, he said.

"Money is going to be a big issue, and we're going to have to talk to our federal partners" about whether money can be spent for that purpose, Nursick said.

He said the DOT does have plans to upgrade the camera images.

"We are looking at the possibility of getting an RFP (request for proposal) out by this fall to solicit service providers to essentially set up Web sites with streaming video from all our cameras," Nursick said. That would be in real time, versus periodically updated snapshots.

There are still issues to work out, however.