When I travelled this route every day from North Haven to my home in Shelton, this was the most stressful part of my ride. It becomes a contest to see who can cut the other guy off first. Its about time something is done about this dangerous merge!

Whoever designed that traffic flow pattern ought to go back to school. It's the most ineffectively designed area you can imagine. If you're in the lane to go straight on 34 inevitably some idiot cuts you off. It's an accident waiting to happen

Amen! Before you turn the corner onto the bridge there is an overhead sign saying the left most lane is for route 8 South, and the middle lane is for route 34. The painting directly contradicts the overhead sign. Someone just wasn't thinking clearly - it makes no sense and is a pointless traffic hazard.

Also the green traffic light on the East side of that bridge has been burned out for at least 2 weeks. Whose job is it to fix that?

The pending re-design of Main St. Derby (Route 34) will address the horrible lane alignment and lane drop in the westbound lanes. Unfortunately it will be several years before the project comes out of design and gets bid for construction.
YES, YES, I understand that common sense would dictate that it could be re-signalized and re-striped much sooner, but it won't. The state & federal bureaucracy involved in this will not allow a change without a complete analysis and re-design from the west bank of the Naugatuck River to at least the interchange with Caroline Street.

At the very least they could repaint the existing stripes on the road. As it is now, the paint is so faded that it is hard to see during the day and impossible at night or during rain storms and adds to the confusion.

Repainting of existing stripes, arrows and other way-finding is underway with federal stimulus funds throughout the Route 8 corridor, including all major interchanges. Weather permitting, Main Street, Derby will be done this winter or spring.

When repainting, PLEASE MOVE THE DASHED LINES OVER!

Like I mentioned, simple solution to avoid confusion would be to move the dashed lines at the split from the right of the center lane to the left of the center lane.

REPAINT THE LINES!

I'll bet I could hire someone in Mexico City to walk the 2,000 miles to Derby, panhandle at the Rt 8 / Rt 34 intersection for enough cash to go over to the Home Depot to buy a couple gallons of paint and brushes and I'll bet they could have those lines painted faster than the State can.

Aside from the general frustration with bureaucracy as expressed above, the advanced signage and faded striping are in fact correctly installed given the difficult lane-drop on Route 34 West. (See 7 uploaded pictures in this thread below)

If everyone can keep in mind the following law and keeps their cool as some jerk cuts off other drivers without using a signal (retaliating by blocking merge doesn't help & actually will make everyone's trip longer) this terrible intersection would actually perform much more smoothly.

OK, here's the law, remember: IT IS LEGAL AND APPROPRIATE FOR ANY VEHICLE TO CROSS A DASHED LINE provided they use a signal and have sufficient room to merge. Vehicles are NEVER allowed to cross a solid line! (see pic SR 34- #3 for example)
Drivers who have cars merging in front of them should also be courteous and ALLOW THE MERGE TO OCCUR, rather than "race" the merging vehicle for the open area ahead, no matter how rude or inappropriate the other driver may be or how far they raced down the open lane to cross the dashed line at the last second. Preventing the merge and forcing a delay in the other lane just compounds the difficulty of this stretch of road for innocent drivers behind both of you.

As to how you should properly line up in advance of the various merges :
Starting with pic SR 34-#1 (below) on Route 34 West, the advanced signage IS correct & attempts to line you up for future merges:
>Right Lane for Derby Ave. (Route 115) to Ansonia,
>Center Lane for Route 8 North & Route 34 West, &
>Left Lane for Route 8 South
Once you have negotiated the turn over the Atwater Bridge, all the while people are merging back & forth and the Right Lane drops off for Route 8 North (this lane drop is actually what creates 90%of the problems)

You are now approaching the 2-lane line up for Routes 8 South & 34 West (pics SR 34-#4a & SR 34- #4b):
>Right Lane for Route 34 West or Derby Train Station (Home Depot)
>Left Lane for Route 8 South OR Route 34 West
YES you can use either lane for Route 34 West!
Remember the law:
IT IS LEGAL AND APPROPRIATE TO MERGE ACROSS ANY DASHED LINE. (take another look at pic #4b- All dashed lines) Please allow any vehicle with its nose farther forward than yours to make its signaled merge. Again, no matter how rude the merging vehicle may seem, allowing this movement is critical to maintaining the smooth flow of all traffic behind you and both lanes actually SHOULD be used at peak times to prevent gridlock.

Next, proceeding under the Route 8 Overpass (pics SR 34- #4b & SR 34- #5):
>Right Lane to Home Depot
>2 "Center" Lanes to Route 34 West (the one to left is preferred but not mandatory, see the dashed lines)
>2 Left Lanes to Route 8 South

From there, again, it is legal & appropriate to merge across any dashed line. This means that as the 2 "center" lanes approach the next traffic signal at Water St, while courtesy would dictate that vehicles would use the Right lane only to turn on Water Street IT IS LEGAL to use the right lane for Route 34 West UNTIL THERE IS NO LONGER A DASHED LINE (see pic SR 34- #6 & SR 34- #7).

In fact, especially at peak demand hours, both lanes SHOULD be used to prevent vehicle stacking into the preceding interchange, aka "gridlock".

Its hard to allow a rude driver to merge in front of you, but in the end if you let it go everyone will get to their destination more quickly.

Pic SR 34- #2

Pic SR 34- #3

Pic SR 34- #4a

Pic SR 34- #4b

Pic SR 34- #5

Pic SR 34- #6

Pic SR 34- #7

I don't think planner understands yet. The problem is the current striping forces people who intend to go straight on 34 to cross the bridge in the LEFT lane to avoid making a lane change. This isn't about legalisms. It isn't about lane alignments that might happen in the future. The center lane is marked by signage as the route 34 lane. People can deal with the lane going away at water street.

Because ppl going on 34 are crossing in the left lane, it blocks ppl wanting to go south on 8... Which ends up creating gridlock for ppl exiting nb 8 wanting to turn left and go towards downtown which can ultimately end up with stopped traffic on route 8

Art- I understand your point and agree with you about the advance signage creating a stack in the box at peak demand times. The reason the sign is placed over that lane is that it is the through lane for Route 34. I don't believe that placing it over the lane to the right of it would provide much relief and would cause box stacks in the next interchange. But if more drivers understood the meaning of a dashed vs. solid stripe they would realize they could use both lanes.
As for the legalisms or future projects, I made those references to address everyone's concerns. However, the true solution to this area does involve the re-design of Main St. which actually begins next week!

Planner also doesn't understand that you can't see any dashed lines out there because they are so faded due to disrepair and neglect of maintenance.

Rob Schumaker is correct.
I Didn't mean to upset anyone. Just trying to provide info.

The signage is not the problem, neither is it "faded paint" issue.

The problem is in picture #4b. The dotted line connects to the wrong striped line. The Left lane should be spread into the two turn lanes for the Route 8 entrance, and the middle lane be the "straight through" lane for people intending to go on route 34 as intended by the sign and the way the bridge was realigned a few years ago.

A secondary issue is that at the end of the bridge as the lanes widen the orange striping on the left edge is "pushing" cars to the right, rather than aligning them to move into the turn lanes. The intent of the redesign of that end of the bridge is obvious to me, and someone didn't apparent understand the "plan".

I agree with Art on the incorrect direction of the dashed lines. Sure, it is completely legal to cross dashed lines with an indicator on. Be that as it may, I have never encountered another instance where there is so consistently an issue due to converging driving lines. The Dashed lines literally directs drivers in the left lane coming over the bridge directly across what would be the line of travel for west bound 34 traffic in the right lane. And while common courtesy SHOULD prevail here, that does not seem to be the case.

My observations :
People in the left lane continuing on 34w seem to feel entitled to continuing without worry of those in the right lane (and since they are continuing in a designated lane and they have right of way, why shouldn't they). This often leads to erratic speed changes, honking, (accidents?) and general confusion when someone from the right lane continues going in their line of travel directly into the indicated line of travel of the left lane (usually without a signal).

People in the right lane continuing on 34w seem to feel that since they are just continuing strait and since signage directed them to this lane they can continue onward while left laners will move towards the rt. 8S on ramp lanes. When those left laners don't move towards the rt. 8s lanes and continue towards the 34w lane, bringing them towards the right lane travelers actual line of travel, the same erratic speed changes, honking, (accidents?) and general confusion occur.

While I understand the intention of this design, and I can see that it is completely legal, I don't agree with it. Forcing vehicles that want to continue to travel strait to use their indicator to do so seems counter-intuitive to me, and judging by my daily interaction with this area it does to others as well. Also, traveling into another lanes direction of travel to continue in my lane also seems counter intuitive.I suspect that a simple transfer of the dashed lines would help alleviate the seemingly endless battle that occurs at this intersection. I hope you future alterations and planning will consider this.

I drove through there this afternoon and the dotted line is gone :)

There may still be a residual issue of people who are used to getting into the left lane to go straight, but the absence of the line will probably clue in most people to the intuitive way...

The 2nd lane in front of Home Depot allows some people who intend to go straight to increase the capacity by ducking in that lane and then merging before water street - especially as a way to escape the intersection if they get stuck when the light turns red... or to go around left turners so it's good the lane is there. I can put up with waiting a few years for the bigger problem to be dealt with.

I don't know if it was related to this thread or independent actions by someone else, but I'm a lot happier now :)

Have any on you ever tried to get onto I-84 west from the Rte 8 exit and then navigate across 5 lanes of speeding traffic as quickly as you can to take the 1st exit ( for Mattatuck CC)? That's taking a chance with your life and people do it every day.
If everyone would slow down alittle and look out for the other cars, it would help a great deal. No amount of $ is going to make drivers courteous to each other. Oh, and get off your cell phones!

Art, the lines are still there, they've just faded.

FML. They just repainted the lines I've been complaining about the exact same way they used to be, except a with a bit less space between the dashes.

Thanks for the consideration...

Apparently complaints to the Derby Police Department about this intersection have decreased over the past couple of months. Are people just fed up or has it actually gotten better there?

They've finnaly changed the lanes so that when you are on the bridge the left lane is specific to rt 8 turn lanes and the center lane is for 34, water st, and hme depot.