Highway tolls are again being discussed in Connecticut as part of an 18-month study conducted by the state Department of Transportation. It's got road planners asking an interesting question, can one type of toll actually reduce traffic? It's called congestion pricing. "The idea is that when it's very congested, when there's lots of demand, the price goes up in order to encourage some number of drivers to either postpone their trip, carpool, or figure out some way to not be on the lanes at that very expensive time," said Asha Weinstein Agrawal, a transportation scholar at San José State University.
Weinstein Agrawal said the idea hinges on giving drivers a choice. For example, travel on a highway for free during "off-peak" hours or pay a toll during rush hour to travel in a less-jammed-up "express" lane. "The way congestion builds up on the road, you don't actually have to get everybody off to remove the congestion. There's usually a fairly small tipping point," she said.
That tipping point is hard to quantify, but it's pretty small. Some say around 5 percent of total traffic. And diverting that percentage of drivers could make a big difference in Connecticut. Take, for example, the I-95 corridor from New York to New Haven. According to the state Department of Transportation, congestion increased there by 19 percent between 2001 and 2011. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Developer unveils plans for Guilford Commons
GUILFORD >> In the most recent attempt to spur development at the “rock pile,” representatives from DDR Corp. presented plans before the Design Review Committee on Wednesday to build a 135,000-square-foot shopping center at the Guilford Commons site on the west end of town. The presentation comes more than six years after the town initially approved an application from the Ohio-based company to build a retail center on the 26-acre property at 1919 Boston Post Road.
That project stalled after a weak economy caused many potential tenants to lose interest in the retail center. Since the initial plan fell through, other projects — including one to build a Costco — have been discussed for the site, but none of those materialized. “It’s been a rather long hibernation period and we’re very excited to start the process again with the town,” John Knuff, an attorney representing DDR, said during Wednesday’s meeting at the Nathanael B. Greene Community Center. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
'Walkable' village underway in East Hampton
.Dream Developers of East Hampton broke ground Wednesday for five, two-story buildings, each with eight garden-style apartments, and a separate two-story building with 18,000 square feet of office-retail space. Edgewater Hill is adjacent to the Laurel Ridge subdivision and fronts the east side of the town's Route 66 commercial corridor. Condominiums, single-family houses and more commercial space will come later, Dream Developers co-owner Steve Motto said.
In all, Edgewater eventually will encompass more than 200 dwellings and 80,000 square feet of commercial space, Motto said. The project's buildout pricetag was unavailable.
"It's finally here," Motto said. "It was a dream of ours to make a vibrant, walkable community work for the town of East Hampton.'' Town planner-architect Patrick Pinnell, of Goman + York Property Advisors in East Hartford, designed key elements of Edgewater Hill. Pinnell is renowned for his embrace of "new urbanism,'' a planning concept in which housing, retail, offices and green spaces are unified into a pedestrian-friendly "village.'' CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CROG's message about CTfastrak: All Aboard
In a trip less smooth or quick than what they will expect next year, several dozen central Connecticut community leaders took their first bus ride Thursday afternoon on CTfastrak. Business executives and local officials from Hartford, Newington, New Britain and West Hartford toured the rapid transit busway, a $567 million project that they hope will spur housing growth, business development and new jobs along its 9.4-mile route. The busway is still 10 months from opening, the landscaping and fences are only partly completed, and a few stretches of the roadbed are still just dirt or gravel. But tour cruised along on several miles of fresh pavement, passing new platforms and silver-and-green stations. "The physical progress is amazing," said Lyle Wray, executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments, which organized the trip. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CRDA upgrades XL's Center's Embarrassing Conditions
HARTFORD — It's tough to argue with UConn basketball Coach Geno Auriemma's observations Wednesday that the city's XL Center needs work — a lot of work — to make it a worthy off-campus home court of the country's two top college basketball programs. Michael W. Freimuth, chief executive of the Capital Region Development Authority, doesn't even try. "He's absolutely right, this building needs to get with it," Freimuth said. "We need this building to be a 2015 smart structure. That is unquestionably correct." Freimuth said $35 million in state-funded upgrades are now underway and expected to be largely completed by October. And, on Friday, the CRDA, which oversees operations at XL, will begin seeking a consultant to determine if the existing facility on Trumbull Street can be transformed in the future into a next-generation venue or whether the best option would be to build a new arena. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Norwalk bridge to remain closed? Depends on who's talking
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., announced Thursday that a mechanical swing bridge in Norwalk would remain in the closed position indefinitely, providing reliable passage for Metro-North commuter trains while interrupting marine traffic on the Norwalk River.
But the Connecticut Department of Transportation contradicted the statement hours later, saying the state was continuing to study the best approach to handling a bridge that became stuck in the open position twice in recent weeks, disrupting the busy New Haven rail line. According to ConnDOT, the bridge would not necessarily remain in the closed position. "Any openings of the bridge for marine traffic will be done using a manual method to ensure that everything works properly," said Judd Everhart, a DOT spokesman. Blumenthal's announcement, which was based on a written advisory from the Coast Guard that called the bridge "inoperable," caught the DOT and the Malloy administration by surprise on two counts: It broke the news of a state bridge closing and suggested that the DOT had settled on short-term repairs to fix a 118-year-old bridge slated for replacement.
"Connecticut is working with the Coast Guard and Metro-North Railroad to coordinate the best approach to short- and long-term repairs to the Walk railroad bridge in Norwalk," Everhart said. "We have assembled a team to come up with design plans for short-term repairs within 30 days." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE