Traffic congestion and accidents on the six-lane, state-owned road have been discussed at many public meetings the past three years. Residents and public officials have expressed concerns about fatalities, injuries and property damage caused by speeding.

"To me, the accidents are occurring at a rate that their lives are threatened and their property," Kensington Town Councilman Al Carr said Monday. "I don't think it's acceptable to have residents feeling unsafe because of a road."

The stretch of Connecticut Avenue in Kensington was the site of 212 car accidents from 1999 to 2002, according to Kellie Boulware, a spokeswoman for the State Highway Administration.

The crashes resulted in three fatalities, according to police reports. They also resulted in 162 injuries and 90 incidents of property damage, Boulware said.

Connecticut Avenue carried about 42,000 vehicles on an average day in 2001, the latest statistics available, Boulware said.

Boulware said the accident rate for Connecticut Avenue "is slightly higher than normal for a road of that size." She said it might be higher because a lot of smaller streets cross Connecticut Avenue and the area has a lot of shops and gas stations.

Speeding

Excess speed was involved in many of the recent accidents, police said.

"A continuing concern for us is the speed issue on Connecticut Avenue," said Officer Derek Baliles, a Montgomery County Police spokesman. "It's almost a fishing hole. You can almost always find people exceeding the speed limit by 10, 15, 20 miles per hour. ... People just haul coming out of Kensington to the Beltway."

The speed limit on Connecticut Avenue is 35 mph through most of Kensington, but it is 30 in a short section near the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and University Boulevard.

When State Highway performed a speed check on Connecticut Avenue in Kensington in February, it found that about 90 percent of drivers were speeding, Carr said.

"That opened my eyes," Carr said.

Tracey Furman of Kensington, a member of the town's traffic committee, said, "I think most people are law-abiding and want to go the speed limit. They're just not paying enough attention."

She said many drivers tend to go about the same speed as other cars on the road, even if they are exceeding the speed limit.

The appearance and width of Connecticut Avenue also may encourage speeding.

"It's overbuilt. It feels very natural to drive 50 miles per hour on it," Carr said. "It almost feels like an interstate highway."

Furman agreed. "It just lends itself to the type of speed that is not appropriate for the neighborhood," she said. "There's nothing that encourages you to slow down. ... It's kind of wide open, and people take advantage of that."

What have officials done?

Kensington officials have kept up a regular correspondence with State Highway officials, detailing their concerns and recommendations for Connecticut Avenue.

"We've asked them repeatedly to make engineering changes," Carr said. "They've agreed to make some minor changes, but they need to do more."

The issue is complex because safety measures can work against another goal: eliminating rush-hour traffic jams.

"We're fighting the fact that they're trying to get traffic north and south as fast as possible," Furman said. "It takes a while to make things happen. It's a very frustrating process."

In a Nov. 25 letter to Charlie Watkins, a State Highway district engineer, Carr requested that State Highway consider a number of measures to slow traffic, including narrowing traffic lanes, widening sidewalks, allowing on-street parking and installing a permanent radar speed trailer, which flashes drivers' speed as they pass.

In a Feb. 13 letter to town officials, State Highway officials declined to narrow traffic lanes, but agreed to widen the stripes delineating the lanes, making the lanes appear narrower to drivers. It declined to widen sidewalks, but agreed to move signs blocking sidewalks.

It also declined to install a permanent radar speed trailer, but agreed to provide a temporary one. Kensington's Town Council voted 4-0 Monday night to buy a radar speed trailer.

The trailer is designed to make drivers more aware of their speeding and to create a reliable record showing how many cars exceed the speed limit, which town officials can use when they lobby county and state officials.

Carr acknowledged that Kensington must rely on the state for most changes to Connecticut Avenue. "It's still controlled by the state, so there's a limit to what we can do," he said.