December 8, 2017

CT Construction Digest Friday December 8, 2017

One lane on Route 68 in Wallingford to close early next week for gas line installation project

WALLINGFORD — One lane of Route 68 near Interstate 91 will be closed early next week while Eversource Energy installs a new gas line.
The eastbound lane will be closed between the I-91 southbound on-ramp and I-91 northbound off-ramp from Monday morning through Wednesday night while crews work in the area of the highway overpass, Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said in a statement. The construction is part of a multi-million dollar project to link natural gas distribution systems in Wallingford and Middletown.
Ramps will remain open during construction. Police will direct traffic in the area.

Tribes counter MGM, hinting at their bid for new casinos

The tribal owners of the Foxwoods Resorts and Mohegan Sun casinos sent legislative leaders a letter Wednesday asking for a chance to compete with MGM Resorts International's proposal for a Bridgeport gambling resort if the legislature is intent next year on considering opening Connecticut to casino expansion.
The letter from Rodney Butler and Kevin Brown, the chairmen of the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations, hints that they are less interested in open competition than in legislation similar to the bill passed in 2017: A law authorizing the tribes to jointly develop a casino in East Windsor to blunt the loss of business to an MGM resort opening in Springfield.
Connecticut, tribes sue feds to break deadlock on third casinoState, Foxwoods scuffle over tax status of new gaming machinesTribes' lawyers tell Interior it must accept casino dealMGM pitches Bridgeport casino as feds delay tribes' expansion
The tribes originally proposed that the state consider up to three gateway casinos to maintain or even grow its market share: one in the I-91 corridor of north-central Connecticut to compete with MGM Springfield, plus others off I-84 in the Danbury area and I-95 in Fairfield County.
"It was the Legislature's decision to move forward with only one site in the north-central Hartford region. If circumstances have changed and there is now real interest in putting a casino in Bridgeport, we want to be a part of that discussion," the tribal chairmen wrote Wednesday. "Over the past 30 years, many promises have been made to residents of the Park City. Few if any have come to fruition. We like so many others see the tremendous potential of Bridgeport and would love to be one of the catalysts that lead to a real revival."
The 2017 law giving the tribes exclusive rights to a new casino in East Windsor was unique, a reflection of the state's de facto partnership with the Pequots and Mohegans. In return for exclusive rights to casino gaming, the tribes pay Connecticut 25 percent of gross slots revenue.
States typically create competitive processes for casino licenses, such as the competition waged recently in Massachusetts for up to three casinos. MGM Springfield is to open next year, while Wynn Boston Harbor is under construction in Everett, Mass., and projected to open in June 2019. The Mohegans were among the competitors.  CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Malloy Says State Facing Crisis In Transportation Funding With Widespread Cutbacks Looming

Connecticut’s transportation system is in crisis and needs almost $1 billion in new revenue over the next five years or the state will have to cut major road and rail programs and raise bus and rail fares, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Thursday.
The governor said tolls, higher gas taxes or dedicating more sales taxes to transportation should be considered by the legislature. But those are politically unpopular options lawmakers have rejected in the past and will find hard to swallow, particularly in an election year like 2018.
“Today we are at a crossroads, and a decision must be made,” Malloy said. “Will we cancel important projects and let our roads and bridges deteriorate, or will we endeavor to face these problems head-on and find new ways to support our transportation system?”
Major projects, such as rebuilding the elevated portion of I-84 in Hartford, the “mixmaster” interchange in Waterbury, and dozens of other road and bridge projects, might have to be delayed. The state Department of Transportation would have to cut jobs and bus and rail fares would have to be increased, Malloy said.
Without action soon, Malloy said, the state fund dedicated to transportation will go into deficit and the state will no longer be able to borrow money to finance road and rail projects.
State transportation experts estimate that it would take a 14-cent-per-gallon increase in state gasoline taxes to keep the transportation fund out of deficit over the next five years.
The governor said the budget recently passed by the General Assembly doesn’t solve the nearly bankrupt transportation finance system. 
Malloy, who isn’t running for re-election next year, denied that he should bear responsibility for the state’s failure to resolve a funding problem that’s been getting worse during his seven years in office, insisting he’s repeatedly tried to get the General Assembly to approve solutions. He said he did manage to push through a plan to dedicate half-a-cent of the sales tax toward transportation funding.
The Senate’s top Republican, Len Fasano of North Haven, rejected Malloy’s claim that the GOP is responsible for the crisis. “This is a result of bad policies that have been enacted by Gov. Malloy and his Democrat colleagues — policies that have run the transportation fund into the ground,” Fasano said.
“These problems were further exacerbated by a $100 billion transportation plan that was enacted without a way to pay for it,” Fasano said. “All of these actions combined have continued Connecticut down the road of fiscal ruin.” Fasano said he doesn’t believe the legislature should raise any taxes to deal with the problem.
House Republican Leader Themis Klarides of Derby also laid the blame for the current crisis at Malloy’s feet. She said a GOP budget that was proposed and vetoed in September by the governor would have solved the transportation fund problems without new taxes.
Malloy said improving Connecticut’s transportation system has been a major theme throughout his seven years in office, and he has repeatedly promoted his plans for a $100 billion, 30-year transportation infrastructure upgrade. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Construction on new Derby High School

DERBY >> Ground likely won’t be broken until January on a major-league facelift slated for the school district’s athletic complex.
That’s according to Superintendent of Schools Matthew Conway, who recently gave a brief update to the Board of Aldermen on the multimillion-dollar makeover.
“We expect to have shovels in the ground in January,” said Conway.
Two separate committees — the Athletic Complex Building Committee and the Field House and Baseball Field Committee — have been working with two architects on the projects.
City Treasurer Keith McLiverty, chairman of the Athletic Complex Building Committee, said the magnitude of the projects, from the design process to acquiring the necessary approvals from land-use boards, takes time.
“This is the type of project where the up-front work, such as design and site plans, take longer than one would expect,” said McLiverty.
McLiverty said once a Request for Quotes goes out to select contractors to put the designs in motion, the projects will move ahead more quickly.
“We are balancing the privately funded project pace with the pace of the publicly funded project,” McLiverty said. “(The goal is) keeping both trains moving at the same speed to arrive at the station at the same end date. ... The coordination is a methodical process.”
New Britain firm Kaestle Boos Associates Inc., the successful designer behind the minor league stadium that formerly housed the New Britain Rock Cats, is onboard as project manager, overseeing the design and construction of an artificial turf football field, multi-purpose field and eight-lane rubberized track at the Leo F. Ryan Sports Complex on Chatfield Street.
Derby received $2.9 million in funding from the state Bond Commission for that project. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
 
 
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday a day of reckoning has arrived for Connecticut’s depleted special transportation fund and the services and projects it finances, outlining what is likely to be an election-year challenge for the General Assembly next year and, perhaps, the last major initiative of a lame-duck governor.
With a long hit list of projects and services destined to be shelved without an infusion of revenue, Malloy is attempting to bring a sense of urgency to a legislature that has proven to be remarkably indifferent to a crumbling and underfunded transportation infrastructure over the tenures of a half-dozen governors.
“This goes back decades,” Malloy said. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now in a critical moment.”
Connecticut paid close attention to infrastructure after a section of I-95 collapsed into the Mianus River in Greenwich in 1983, but the neglect resumed as the economy cooled and the state struggled to balance its budget. A 2013 study found that from 1989 to 2008, the state’s highway spending per mile fell 35 percent when adjusted for inflation, the worst drop of any state.
Malloy won passage of a measure diverting a half-cent of the sales tax to the transportation fund in 2015, but legislators have balked at bolder moves, rejecting a push by Rep. Tony Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, the co-chair of the Transportation Committee, to place electronic tolls on the highways.
On Thursday, the governor and his transportation commissioner, James P. Redeker, said the revenue crunch means the state could continue to spend $6.2 billion of the current five-year capital plan, but defer as much as $4.3 billion. The cuts would affect projects across the state and also likely force more fare increases in rail and bus service.
As Connecticut prepares for a major bond sale next month to finance transportation improvements, projections sent recently to bond-rating agencies show the new state budget won’t prevent the Special Transportation Fund from falling into a series of annual deficits starting in July — or from reaching insolvency by mid-2020.
Typically, every dollar in state capital spending on major transportation projects leverages roughly four dollars in matching federal funding.
The Department of Transportation estimates that to avert this crisis with revenue alone would require a 14-cents-per-gallon increase in gasoline taxes — at least until tolls could be fully implemented about six years from now. The DOT estimates tolls could raise $700 million annually by about 2024.
Guerrera said lawmakers generally shy from controversy in election years, but the revenue shortfall must be addressed by the end of the session in 2018, when all 187 seats in the General Assembly will be up for election.
“We all have to make a decision here as legislators,” Guerrera said. “Do you want to cut programs? Do you want to cut infrastructure projects? Do you want to raise fares? Or do you want to look for other sources of revenue? This isn’t brain surgery here. This is what it comes down to, and I understand it’s an election year.”
In the two-year budget passed in 2015, when legislators struggled to balance the budget, $37.5 million was taken from the special transportation fund, resulting in increases in fares for buses and trains and reductions in highway maintenance. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Infamous S-curve on I-84 is gone

WATERBURY — The infamous I-84 S-curve near Harpers Ferry Road is now history.
Contractors working on the Interstate 84 road project switched that portion of the road eastbound to its new alignment Thursday night, without the infamous S-curve.
Starting at 9:30 p.m., eastbound traffic shifted to the south into its new alignment, just west of the Hamilton Avenue Bridge. From there, traffic continues under the new Harpers Ferry Road Bridge, next to the realigned Reidville Drive and Mad River. It rejoins the existing I-84 eastbound just before the Scott Road Bridge.
The traffic shift will allow the contractor, I-84 Constructers, to perform bridge demolition, new bridge construction and roadway construction.
“Shifting the lanes opens up an entirely new work area for winter and into next year because it separates eastbound traffic from westbound traffic,” said state Department of Transportation Project Engineer Christopher Zukowski.
Crews worked around the clock to complete blasting, excavation, paving and markings to open the new eastbound section before temperatures became too cold to work with bituminousconcrete. “We were rushing, we’ve been literally working 24 hours a day,” Zukowski said. “We’ve accomplished a tremendous amount of work in the last month or so.”
There are benefits for drivers. The new alignment is straighter and easier to navigate. In addition, it has two lanes with a 12-foot shoulder along the right lane.
“It’s going to make driving safer and more efficient in this area,” Zukowski said.
The final eastbound alignment will have three lanes, a new Exit 25 off-ramp and a new Exit 23 on-ramp. Another 5 inches of bituminous concrete will be poured over the surface of the roadway, making the ride smoother, Zukowski said.
The final, three-lane alignment isn’t scheduled togo into effect until 2019, but the DOT says it will work with the contractor to open sooner if possible.
Meanwhile, the westbound direction of I-84 will shift to its new alignment in spring 2018. At that time, it will be two lanes as well.
The project remains on track to be substantially finished by the end of August 2019, when three continuous lanes in each direction will open.
The $330 million reconstruction project includes rebuilding a 2.7-mile section of I-84 between Washington Street and Pierpont Road, along with improvements to the highway, bridges, utilities and local roads. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE