NORWALK — Rebuilding the Walk Bridge may be two years off, but the rumblings of the roughly billion dollar state project are already being felt in Norwalk.
In June, the state Department of Transportation began repairing the fender system protecting the century-old railroad bridge that carries Amtrak and Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line trains across the Norwalk River.
Last week, traffic was curtailed under the Fort Point Street Bridge as crews performed soil borings. Similar borings are or will be done along Ann Street, North Water Street, the railroad embankment and in the Norwalk River, according to DOT officials.
“We’re doing soil borings in preparation of progressing the design,” said John D. Hanifin, project manager and transportation supervising engineer with DOT of the runup to the bridge replacement. “That tells you the soil conditions so you know how to design your foundations.”
While public attention has been focused on the Walk Bridge, a 120-year-old swing bridge slated for replacement following ongoing operational failures, DOT officials remind that the project is broader.
In addition to replacing the Walk Bridge with either a vertical lift or rolling bascule structure, DOT plans to build a Danbury Branch Dockyard off Crescent Street and make
improvements to the Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line tracks in East Norwalk.
“Those two projects are advance work, so they’ll start construction in the spring and then in 2018 we’ll have the bridgework start,” Hanifin said. “We need those projects in order to maintain the level of service with the railroad that we have today. We’re going to build the interlocking (system) that will allow us to move trains from track to track.”
The Danbury Branch Dockyard Project will add track sidings, signals and electrification to the southern end of the Danbury Branch Line. The improvements will be made from where the Danbury Branch splits off the main line to one mile north, in the area formerly known as the Dock Yard. There will be minimal impact to local roads as a result of this project, according to DOT. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
New train stations in Wallingford and Meriden may open in spring
Officials say new train stations in Meriden and Wallingford may open for existing Amtrak service once they are completed next spring.
The train stations are expected to be completed in May 2017, according to John Bernick, assistant rail administrator for the state Department of Transportation. Service on the $650 million New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail project is projected to begin in January 2018.
The train stations “will be completed early and they will be capable of supporting passengers,” Bernick said. Bernick said ongoing track work could prevent an early opening of the stations. Construction of the tracks and new train stations are not running on the same timetable, Bernick said.
Temporary platforms will be removed once the new platforms in Meriden and Wallingford are completed, Bernick said. Ticket vending machines will not be installed until the new rail service begins.
Bernick said it’s not clear when Meriden’s former train station lobby and ticket office will be demolished.
Construction on the train stations began in early 2015. In addition to stations and tracks, improvements have also been made at grade crossings.
In July, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said 50 percent of the track upgrades had been completed and 80 percent of train station foundations and platforms had been finished. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The $1.5 million project to build a roundabout at the intersection and another at the House Street intersection will be delayed until April or May of 2017 due to a number of factors according to Town Manager Richard J. Johnson.
"It's been very difficult for us because we very much wanted to complete the project this year," Town Manager Richard J. Johnson said. "We shared that goal, but we want to make what we think is the best decision in the long run because you could get caught [by winter]."
Work on the Hebron Avenue/New London Turnpike roundabout was scheduled to begin this summer with the Hebron Avenue/House Street roundabout in the summer of 2017. But delays in finalizing easements, waiting for granite curbing and wiring the replacement utility poles have led to town officials to worry about not finishing the project before winter.
The town will bid both projects later this year or early next year and have crews in place to begin the project as soon as possible. The House Street roundabout won't be started until the New London one is significantly completed, town officials noted.
"There would have to be a consecutive type of construction rather than concurrent," Town Engineer Director of Physical Service Daniel A. Pennington said. "The type of construction could overlap a little by about a month."
Johnson said he is hoping for economy of scale by bidding both projects together. The House Street roundabout will cost $1.6 million which will be paid for with a state grant. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The summer day they swapped out a lane of I-95
am writing this column on deadline Monday evening, and if I miss it, the worst thing that might happen is that it won't make it into the Tuesday print edition of The Day.
As I aim toward my own routine newsroom deadline, it seems positively trivial compared to the nail-biting deadline the state Department of Transportation and the contractor it has hired to replace the bridge over Oil Mill Road in Waterford is now staring down.
The state, which was to begin narrowing I-95 down to one lane of slow-moving traffic by 8 p.m. Monday, has allotted 34 hours for the replacement of one of four lanes, two north and two south, each 70 feet in length, that make up the bridge over the local road.
The other three are scheduled to be replaced during their own 34-hour time windows, one next week and the others in October. The system, in which pre-built bridge sections are slid into place, is supposed to narrow the disruption time of bridge replacement.
In the best of circumstances, traffic will slow down on the remaining northbound lane of the Oil Mill Bridge Tuesday, and the ensuing highway backup won't make it past the Raymond E. Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River, two towns away.
In the event the backup extends farther than the Baldwin Bridge, the DOT's operation center may swing into contingency planning, possibly diverting traffic much farther south on I-95 onto other roads.
What happens, I asked DOT engineer John Deliberto, who is overseeing the complicated, timed choreography of bridge lane replacement, if something goes wrong, if it takes longer than 34 hours?
I could tell from the look on Deliberto's face that taking longer than 34 hours is not really anything anyone wants to think about.
He did say that once they cut into the bridge and start removing it in 8- to-10-foot sections, by the early hours of Tuesday morning, there's really no going back.
"There's a lot to do in 34 hours," he said. "But we have an excellent team in place, a talented contractor and it's all been planned well.
"We do have backups and contingencies if anything goes wrong." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Downtown New Britain's transit-oriented makeover takes off
Establishing Connecticut's transportation infrastructure hasn't always worked out well for the city of New Britain.
Opening of highways Route 9/Route 72 in the late 70s, early 80s obliterated many older buildings and homes and bifurcated New Britain in a way that "blew the heart out of downtown," its sitting mayor says.
But decades later, the opening of the 9.5-mile CTfastrak busway corridor, that makes it about a 15-minute bus ride from its central hub into downtown Hartford, has created an expressway for millions of dollars in public and private investment to flow into redeveloping the Hardware City's downtown.
William Carroll, business development coordinator for the New Britain Chamber of Commerce, says total investment in rehabilitating various downtown buildings, including creating a new home for a dialysis-treatment clinic, beautification infrastructure and other pending projects, will approach $100 million within the next five years.
"We haven't seen growth like this since probably before my parents were born,'' said Mayor Erin Stewart, scion of ex-Mayor Timothy Stewart.
Indeed, since CTfastrak debuted its downtown New Britain terminal in March 2015, at least a half dozen redevelopment projects have been announced or completed in downtown. The city, too, is working through a multi-phase, master-planned scheme to improve its streetscapes and other infrastructure.
"People want to invest in cities that are investing in themselves. And we're certainly doing that,'' Erin Stewart said.
That's exactly what the state envisioned from the publicly funded $567 million busway, said state Department of Transportation Commissioner James P. Redeker, a staunch advocate of transit-oriented development. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CT, NY construction industries offer least economic impact in U.S.
Connecticut and New York's private construction industries last year offered the least economic impact when measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) than any other states, according to Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).
In its report, the Rocky Hill-based ABC found construction accounted for just 3.1 percent of GDP in Connecticut, below the national average of 3.9 percent. This follows an ABC report released earlier this month that found Connecticut's construction unemployment rate in June was the fourth highest in the country at 6.9 percent. (The national industry unemployment rate was 4.6 percent.)
Chris Syrek, president of ABC's Connecticut chapter, acknowledged the "pain" of the situation for its members, and attributed it to the state economy's challenging business environment, budget deficits and "high cost of doing business" here.
Overall, Connecticut's state GDP placed it just above the middle in 2015 with the 23rd largest state economy. The state economy is influenced by industry developments in the New York City metropolitan area, since many high-income individuals who work in Manhattan live in Connecticut. That affects residential construction in the state, according to the report.
In 2015, the top five states for the value added from construction as a percentage of state GDP in order from highest to lowest were: North Dakota, Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming and Louisiana.
I-84 Viaduct Project May Force Demolition Of Some Businesses
HARTFORD — Though Capitol Archives and Record Storage President Frank Valente Jr. isn't against progress, he is a little anxious about plans to replace the aging I-84 elevated highway that runs by his building.
Though his business has been a staple on Laurel Street for 35 years, it may soon be demolished if current, recommended plans to replace the I-84 viaduct through Hartford are put in motion.
"Right now, I'm in limbo. There are things I want to do to the building, but if they are going to knock it down, I don't want to do them," Valente said. "I'm putting Band-Aids on things now and trying to do what I can."
Valente is one of a handful of business owners who may see their buildings demolished or altered if I-84 is replaced with a slightly below-grade highway. In June, state engineers recommended the below-grade plan, rejecting ideas for a tunnel or a new elevated highway. Other buildings that could be potentially impacted by this plan include Aetna's mechanical facilities building on Farmington Avenue, the KNOX Greenhouse on Laurel Street, and the Capitol District Energy Center on Capitol Avenue, according to the state Department of Transportation. But no decision has been made, as the Federal Highway Administration is reviewing the plans and should have a decision by fall, said Rich Armstrong, a DOT principal engineer.
The projected cost of the slightly below-grade highway is $4.3 billion to $5.3 billion — the cheapest of the three options, Armstrong said. Currently, there is no funding strategy in place, but Armstrong said the state hopes to seek federal highway funding. Construction could begin as early as 2022 and is expected to take five to seven years to complete. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Canaan gets approval to sign contract for restoring station
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
CANAAN — After years of delays, setbacks and legions of paperwork, the restoration project of the Canaan Union Station will finally become a reality. An excited Charles P. Perotti, the selectman who has been the liaison between the town and the state in bringing this project to fruition, said the town received authorization Monday that it could sign the contract for construction to begin.
The low bidder is Lawrence Brunoli, Inc., a general contractor from Farmington.
Its bid was $2,669,000 and with alternates, $2,809,000. The Connecticut Railroad Historical Association, owner of the building, received $2.7 million in state funding for the project. Perotti said the work must begin 10 days after the signing of the contract, which he hopes will take place in a few days. "We're ready to go; ready to start hammering those nails," said Perotti. The station was nearly destroyed by an arson fire in 2001.