Shaw’s — like Gristede’s, Food Fair and Finast in Westport before it — is dead.
Customers have scattered east to Super Stop & Shop, where GPS is imperative for finding your way around, and west to Trader Joe’s, which proves that the only differences between a “supermarket” and a “grocery store” are a few minor items like a butcher shop, bakery and Drano.
A couple of nearby smaller tenants have also fled what used to be called (I think) Shaw’s Plaza. While it is distressing to lose any retailer, the tumbleweed look of that strip mall provides a rare opportunity for Westport to do something bold, dynamic, perhaps unheard-of:
Eliminate a traffic light.
Why should hundreds of drivers each day slam to a stop in front of a nearly empty shopping center? The only vehicles entering and exiting are construction trucks, and they make their own rules anyway.
Across the street, drivers enjoy many ways of fleeing with their Dunkin’ Donuts or pet food without stopping at that light. It’s superfluous, vestigial — a vehicular version of the appendix.
Removal of the Shaw’s light: One small step for a man, one giant leap for Lincoln Navigators.