Structurally Deficient Bridges in CT at Risk for Closure
NBC30
Busy bridges throughout Connecticut might need to be closed because the federal government considers them structurally deficient, and the state says they don’t have enough money to maintain and repair them.
The United States Federal Highway Administration has classified hundreds of Connecticut bridges, including the Interstate 84 overpass in Hartford and the Yankee Doodle bridge in Fairfield, as structurally deficient. None of these bridges are currently considered unsafe for cars according to the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT), but the department could be forced to close them if costly repairs aren’t made soon and their conditions worsen.
One such bridge along Interstate 95 that crosses railroad tracks in West Haven sees an average of 138,000 crossings per day.
Christine Abboud, whose business neighbors the bridge, said her employees, who often pass beneath it, told her they’ve seen things falling off. CLICK TITLE TO VIEW VIDEO
The question of whether to prioritize jobs or economic efficiency is always difficult. Nowhere is this more of a dilemma than in the construction industry.
In a world of rapid technological disruption, construction is a rock of solidity to which many blue-collar workers can cling. The industry still employs about 7 million workers in the U.S.. The job doesn't change that much from decade to decade. It's a big broad occupation, unlike social-media marketing or other new niche jobs, so it allows working-class people to minimize the time and effort they spend building for a career. And workers get trained on the job, without years of college What's more, construction workers are mostly male. To the degree this is a result of sexism, that's bad. But it also means that the construction industry employs lots of men, at a time when they haven't been doing so well in the jobs department.
Without jobs to provide dignity, working-class men may turn to crime, get addicted to heroin or fail to start families. With factory work disappearing, construction might be a much-needed lifeline holding together what's left of blue-collar America.
But there's a big problem with the U.S. construction industry -- it costs way too much to build things.
Productivity in construction has stagnated throughout much of the world. But in the U.S. it has done particularly poorly. In terms of value added per worker, construction-industry productivity has fallen by about a third since 1970.
If these numbers are accurate, it would be an epic disaster. If productivity declined that much throughout the economy, it would bring U.S. living standards down to those of Spain.
Fortunately, things may not be quite that bad. Measuring productivity growth in any industry is difficult. Costs have to be calculated correctly -- for example, some calculations leave subcontractors out of the equation. And different pieces of the industry -- for example, single-family home construction versus infrastructure construction -- can behave very differently. The business cycle can distort the picture, too. In 2014, a team of economists from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found decreasing productivity in the industry, but the same team updated the analysis four years later and found an increase.
But everyone seems to agree that construction productivity hasn't kept pace with other industries. This is having a big effect on living standards in the U.S. With road repair prohibitively expensive, whole towns can potentially wither and die as they get cut off from the rest of the economy. Expensive and inefficient trains make it harder for American cities to function, leaving poor people stranded at the edges of town. A shortage of new housing can drive up rents, especially in big cities, squeezing the poor and middle class and preventing cities from achieving their full productive potential. It can also reduce the quality of the housing stock, because buildings are too expensive to renovate. Housing is one of the most basic and important things that Americans consume -- much more important than the latest iPhone or fancy new chat app.
Improving construction productivity would therefore make life better for all 323 million Americans and their descendants. The challenge, then, is to find out what's holding the industry back. One thing that doesn't seem to be the problem is excessive salaries for construction workers; pay in the industry is actually very modest.
There is, however, the question of overstaffing. Even if one construction worker is paid a low salary, hiring 10 workers to do a job that two could manage just as safely and easily would cause massive overruns. A recent investigative report in the New York Times found anecdotal evidence of enormous overstaffing in that city's subway-construction projects, especially when compared with countries such as France. Infrastructure blogger Alon Levy says overstaffing is widespread, and pins the blame on union contracts, which are prevalent in government contracting.
Overstaffing means that the need to reduce construction costs directly conflicts with the need to provide more jobs to working-class Americans. That puts policy makers in quite a bind.
Fortunately, before tackling the thorny issue of overstaffing, there are lots of other things that can be done to reduce construction costs. One important task is for governments to smooth out construction spending -- instead of building only in boom times, cities and states should have a consistent flow of construction. That also reduces wear and tear on existing infrastructure, saving money down the road.
A second is to prevent regulatory interruption of construction work. In San Francisco, for example, repeated regulatory appeals routinely stop or delay construction work for long periods of time, creating risk, idling workers, and driving up costs. Streamlining permitting and approval processes and harmonizing building codes would also remove much of the regulatory burden without negatively affecting workers. A report by McKinsey & Co. also suggests moving to a long-term, collaborative type of contracting called Integrated Project Delivery. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Meriden Housing Authority selects development partner for proposed Maple Street apartments
Mary Ellen Godin
MERIDEN — The Meriden Housing Authority has selected a development partner to build 45 market rate apartments on the corner of Maple Branch Road and Maple Street.
The Total Group, also known as Total Interiors of North Branford, has worked on MHA projects before. It was one of three development companies to respond to a bid request in December, MHA Executive Director Robert Cappelletti told the Meriden Housing Authority Monday. The MHA will send a letter to The Total Group notifying it of its qualified applicant status.
“They were the most responsible respondent,” Cappelletti said. “They came prepared and ready to do the project.”
The project plans have not been finalized, and will be negotiated as the MHA moves forward with designs and identifies potential funding sources. The MHA board will formally approve the contract when details are finalized, Cappelletiti said.
Early plans call for 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units to be built on a 1.2-acre corner on Maple Street. The market-rate units are part of a commercial and residential project at 143 W. Main St. The MHA had purchased property on Maple Branch Road and asked the city to abandon the road.
The entire site is 2.5 acres of property along West Main Street in the Meriden Transit Oriented District and is a short walk to the train station. The goal is to develop a retail level below three stories of housing.
Energy savings are built into the project through geo-thermal heating and cooling, and solar panels.
The commercial part of the development at 143 W. Main St. also includes a 650-seat black box theater.
Building the Maple Street apartments, called Maple View, will make it easier to complete the remaining project at 143 W. Main St., Cappelletti said. The complete development will require layers of financial subsidies, including theater, film, and historic tax credits.
“This is history-making,” Cappelletti said last year. “This is what the city needs to come back to life.”
The MHA is also involved in developing Meriden Commons I and II, Hanover Place for veteran housing, and completed 24 Colony St. last year.
New bill would scuttle tribes’ East Windsor casino project
By Brian Hallenbeck
With demolition work at the site of the third Connecticut casino about to begin, a bill surfaced in the state legislature Tuesday that would repeal authorization for the project.
Introduced by the Public Safety and Security Committee, the bill seeks to establish an application process for entities interested in developing “a possible casino gaming facility in the state.” It would require state officials “to develop and issue a request for proposals” and “repeal the authority of MMCT Venture, LLC,” the Mashantucket Pequot-Mohegan partnership intent on building a casino on nontribal land in East Windsor.
“Make no mistake about it, this bill is going to cost thousands of people their jobs and the state hundreds of millions in revenue," said Andrew Doba, a spokesman for MMCT.
The Mashantuckets and the Mohegans, respective owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, are pursuing the $300 million project in East Windsor to protect their existing casinos from the impact of MGM Springfield, the nearly $1 billion resort casino under construction in Massachusetts.
MGM Springfield is targeting a September opening.
MMCT officials confirmed Tuesday that demolition work that had been expected to start Wednesday has been pushed back. The site, off Exit 45 of Interstate 91, is occupied by a vacant Showcase Cinemas building that must be razed before construction can begin. The $300 million project was authorized last year by legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
In the first sign of activity at the site, signs have been erected in the last couple of days touting the tribes' contributions to the state. The signs read: “Two tribes working together ... the RIGHT partnership for Connecticut” and “26 years. 20,000 jobs. $7,000,000,000.”
The $7 billion figure refers to the slot-machine revenues Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have pumped into Connecticut's coffers since the casinos opened.
East Windsor First Selectman Robert Maynard said the town has yet to issue a permit for the demolition work.
Opponents of the East Windsor project, a group that includes lawmakers from the Bridgeport and New Haven areas and MGM Resorts International, the Las Vegas-based operator behind the Springfield project, have advocated for the selection of a third-casino operator through competitive bidding. Such a process, they say, likely would lead to a casino in Bridgeport rather than East Windsor.
MGM Resorts has proposed a Bridgeport casino, which would require legislative approval. Union workers rallied Tuesday night in Bridgeport in support of the plan.
The new legislative proposal only seeks to qualify a would-be casino developer and does not actually authorize a casino. That would require further legislation. The bill calls for bidders to agree to make a $500 million investment in a proposed casino and demonstrate an ability to pay a one-time licensing fee of at least $50 million. Applications would have to be accompanied by a $5 million fee that would be refunded in the case of rejected applications.
MMCT’s agreement with East Windsor calls for the tribes to make a $3 million payment to the town 15 months before the casino opens. Thereafter, the tribes would pay the town $3 million a year to mitigate the casino’s impact on local services and an estimated $5.5 million a year in property taxes. Twenty-five percent of the gaming revenue the casino generates would go to the state.
Maynard said the tribes would have to obtain a building permit from the town before starting construction. That will require the filing of detailed plans that the town will submit to a consultant for review, he said. At that point, a construction schedule would be determined.
“I think it’s going to take them at least 20 months to build it,” Maynard said.
Residents question land swap for Groton school project
By Deborah Straszheim
Groton — More than 70 people jammed a Town Council public hearing on Tuesday on whether the town should move forward with a conservation land swap to build its new middle school adjacent to Robert E. Fitch High School.
Groton already is designing the middle school to be built on land known as the “Merritt property” adjacent to the high school, and received approval for $100 million in state funding for its $184 million school construction program, which includes three schools.
But construction of the middle school, which would be built first, is contingent on the swap. The Merritt property is deed-restricted for open space and recreation, so the town must provide an equivalent property for conservation in its place, by transferring the deed restrictions elsewhere.
The town chose a 20-acre property called Boulder Heights, off the end of Colver Avenue, for the swap, and the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection approved it.
But multiple residents told the council on Tuesday the land is not equivalent.
The parcel is surrounded by highways and apartments and is virtually inaccessible, and one can’t get from one end to the other without scaling a ravine, said Joan Smith of Island Circle South. The Merritt property is 35 acres; Boulder Heights is 20 acres, she said.
“It appears to have been a dumping ground for boulders from nearby construction sites,” Catherine Pratt of Front Street said.
Richard Dixon, who served on the Town Council when voters approved bonding to buy the Merritt property in the late 1980s, said it was intended for conservation. He predicted the town would be sued if it made an error with the transfer of restrictions.
But others warned that Groton would jeopardize $100 million in state funding by disapproving the swap.
Fifty-three percent of town voters approved the school construction plan knowing where the middle school would be built, said Craig Kohler, a member of the former School Facilities Initiative Task Force.
“Not approving this land conversion, after so many before you, including your constituents, have studied it, voted on it and deemed it to be in the best interests of the town, I would think to be a grave mistake,” he said.
The council postponed any action until March 6. Construction on the school is set to begin next year and the facility is set to open in 2020.
If the town doesn’t see the project through, not only will it lose $100 million and possibly never get the money back, but it will have to repair old schools again, school board Chairwoman Kim Shepardson Watson said.
“And guess who gets to pay for that? That would be us. So when we think about what’s sort of at stake, that is what is at stake,” she said.
State Sen. Heather Somers said the state would not give any more “diversity grants” like the one Groton just received to cover 80 percent of one of its schools. The state expects more bad economic news later this week, she said.
“If we don’t use this money now, with the will of the people, I can tell you, you will be going to an empty watering hole,” she said. “There will not be money available for us to ever do a project like this ever again.”
U.S. Agency Rejects Environmental Group's Claim Of Pipeline Manipulation
Stephen Singer
Federal regulators on Tuesday rejected an environmental group’s claim that utilities manipulated gas deliveries to create shortages, causing higher prices that cost New England electricity consumers $3.6 billion over three years.
A staff inquiry of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found “no evidence of anti-competitive withholding of natural gas pipeline capacity by New England shippers,” the agency said.
It said it will not take further action.
FERC investigated following allegations by the Environmental Defense Fund last August that local gas distribution companies in New England withheld capacity to drive up gas and power prices.
“On the basis of that review, staff determined that EDF’s study was flawed and led to incorrect conclusions about the alleged withholding,” FERC said.
The agency said it routinely monitors wholesale natural gas and power markets for potential market manipulation “and any other inappropriate behavior.“
The Environmental Defense Fund did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Eversource said FERC’s finding “confirms what we’ve been stating all along — that the defamatory claims made by the EDF were uninformed and inaccurate.”
Michael West, a spokesman for Avangrid, parent company of United Illuminating, Southern Connecticut Gas and Connecticut Natural Gas, said EDF ignored “real world market and operational consequences” associated with constraints on pipeline delivery in New England.
EDF’s researchers wrote in a 74-page paper that they found “strong evidence” the gas and electricity utilities regularly restricted capacity to New England by scheduling deliveries “without actually flowing gas.”They cited the winter of 2013-14 when temperatures plunged with a blast of Arctic air that drifted south, known as the “Polar vortex.” Gas prices on Jan. 22, 2014, were nearly four times that of a benchmark price, they said.
They said extreme price spikes have been attributed to limited pipeline capacity, which has been used to promote construction of natural gas pipeline capacity.
An Eversource executive said at the time of EDF’s report that its purpose was to promote the idea of unused surplus gas capacity, forcing the region to turn to pipeline construction that environmentalists oppose.
Connecticut regulators began an investigation last fall into practices by the state’s two dominant gas and electric utilities following the accusations of gas manipulation.
Demolition On East Windsor Casino Site Delayed Until Next Week
Kenneth R. Gosselin
The long-anticipated demolition of an old movie theater on the casino site in East Windsor has been pushed back again — this time, by just a a few days, until Monday.
The demolition of the vacant Showcase Cinemas off I-91 was supposed to get underway Wednesday to clear the 26-acre property for a $300 million casino planned by the tribal operators of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun in southeastern Connecticut.
The Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans formed a partnership — MMCT Venture — to develop the casino as a defensive move in the face of MGM Resorts International’s $960 million casino and entertainment complex set to open in September in Springfield.
Demolition originally was supposed to start by the end of last year.
Andrew Doba, a spokesman for MMCT, said the new delay of a few days was necessary to accommodate all the schedules of those who want to attend the ceremonial start to the demolition.
“We want to event to be as accessible to as many people as possible,” he said.Doba declined to say whose schedules were being accommodated by the delay.
There is no timetable yet for actual construction of the new gambling venue, once demolition is complete. A sign heralding the coming casino has been erected at the site. Construction on the casino has slowed as the tribes and the state wrangle with the U.S. Department of the Interior for a more definitive response. At issue is whether the expansion affects the state’s existing slot revenue-sharing agreements with the tribes. The matter is now in the courts.
Those agreements have yielded $7 billion for the state since they were signed in the early 1990s. But intensifying competition from neighboring states has eroded those annual payments in recent years.
State DOTs Urge Congress to Move Project Funding Via Highway, Transit Formulas
The organization representing all state departments of transportation has called on Congress to route new infrastructure appropriations through existing formula-based federal highway and transit programs, and warned against allocating it through discretionary grants.
Using the formula funding systems in the Highway Trust Fund would be "a predictable, equitable, and nationwide distribution of federal dollars" and benefit "urban and rural areas alike," the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said in a Feb. 16 letter as lawmakers try to complete program 2018 allocations under the two-year budget deal Congress recently authorized.
That agreement includes adding $10 billion in each of fiscal 2018 and 2019 for infrastructure funding. The association sent the letter to House and Senate leaders and to key lawmakers in each chamber's appropriations committee.
AASHTO said, in a letter signed by Executive Director Bud Wright, that using the existing highway and transit formulas for new project funds would assure the actual project decisions would be made by states and local governments.
By contrast, it said that allocating federal funds instead through a grant process means the decisions to support specific projects are made in Washington, D.C., and the actual disbursements would face further delays. And with the spring construction season looming, it indicated that could cause further problems for DOTs and transit agencies trying to efficiently complete work they have planned.
"As this year's construction season begins in earnest across the country, it is important that any new funding from the budget act not be caught up in a discretionary grant process that will require project sponsors to develop applications for these funds and then await any award decisions by the U.S. Department of Transportation," AASHTO wrote. "A lack of certainty, especially at this point in the calendar year, creates significant difficulty in advancing these projects in a timely manner through the planning, environmental review, contracting and project construction process."
To underline the point, AASHTO said that at present "for a variety of reasons, much of the congressionally authorized and appropriated discretionary grants in recent fiscal years have yet to be awarded by the USDOT. USDOT is currently reviewing hundreds of applications for $2 billion in FY 2017 and FY 2018 funding for two programs, INFRA and TIGER."
The USDOT took applications through last fast for both 2017's $500 million pool of TIGER infrastructure grants, and an estimated $1.56 billion in 2017 and 2018 INFRA grants it expects to award under a trust fund program authorized in 2015 under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act.
Congress included the 2017 TIGER grants when it completed work on that year's omnibus appropriations bill last May, and the USDOT announced Sept. 7 that it would take project applications for grant funding through Oct. 16.
In June it had opened a longer application process for most of 2017's and all of 2018's INFRA grants, which the FAST Act authorized for projects of regional and national significance and those that improve the flow of freight shipments. It required those applications to be in by Nov. 2.
Any added federal funding to such discretionary programs, AASHTO said, "will add to this backlog and run the risk of not being effectively utilized by state and local governments this construction season. The only way to ensure these dollars are dedicated to projects in the 2018 construction season is to distribute the funding through formula programs."
In its letter, AASHTO also urged appropriators to continue to fund surface transportation programs at levels lawmakers authorized in the five-year FAST Act.
However, it again warned that a FAST Act provision that would hit during fiscal 2020 could hurt funding of some highway projects across the country, and asked lawmakers to repeal a scheduled rescission of $7.569 billion in unobligated highway program contract authority on July 1, 2020. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
