Avoid I-95 gridlock for Stamford bridge replacement, officials warn
Ignacio Laguarda
STAMFORD — Everyone involved in the bridge replacement project at Exit 9 in Stamford has the same advice for drivers: Stay away.
That’s because the state Department of Transportation will be closing Interstate 95 during two weekends, diverting traffic onto on- and off- ramps and creating a traffic mess.
Officials are not only aware of the potential traffic jam, they’re expecting it.“If people want to come this way, avoid it,” said state trooper Sgt. Robert Derry. “It’s really going to be a gridlocked situation.”
Officials believe the short-term headache will be well worth the nuisance since the accelerated timeline of the project will create the least amount of strain on drivers.
Using accelerated bridge construction technology, two separate spans of the prefabricated bridge will be rolled into place over two weekends. Using traditional methods, the construction project could have dragged on for two years, and still would have caused traffic delays due to lane closures.
“The only thing that’s good about it is it’s a short-lived situation,” Derry said.
The 60-year-old Route 1 bridge, deemed structurally deficient, crosses over the highway between Courtland and Seaside avenues, and will be replaced over two weekends — May 31-June 2 and June 8-9 — forcing I-95 motorists onto on- and off-ramps, where the speed limit will drop to 20 miles per hour.
During the two weekends of construction, Route 1 will be closed between Courtland Avenue and Seaside Avenue, and local traffic will be detoured from Route 1 to Courtland Avenue and Hamilton Avenue.
To allow for the removal and replacement of the bridges, traffic on I-95 will be detoured onto the Exit 9 ramps, and back onto the highway. The detours will be in operation from 9 p.m. on Friday until by 5 a.m. on Monday morning during both weekends.
The $15 million project is being led by O&G Industries, a business based out of Torrington.
Currently, there are two giant spans of bridge sitting just south of the highway near Exit 9. The span farthest away from the bridge, known as “Span 2,” will be wheeled into place first, during the weekend of May 31.
Each span alone weighs between 1.6 and 1.8 million pounds. Together, they are made up of over 600 cubic yards of poured concrete and roughly 32 miles of rebar.
While the work will have major traffic implications, it will also attract viewers. State officials have designated a pedestrian viewing area near the site, although they are not encouraging people to drive to the area. The bridge replacement will also be streamed live at i95exit9.com.
Derry said the state has been preparing for the bridge replacement for a long time.
He said two sergeants and 11 troopers will be on site during the lane closures, and additional troopers will be stationed on the Merritt Parkway to handle overflow traffic.
In case of accidents around the construction site, Derry said O&G has contracted a wrecking service to be on site and will pull cars off of the highway in case of a major accident.
“We’re going to be ready,” Derry said. “We have a very comprehensive plan we put together over the last six months in preparation for this.”
Matt Cleary, assistant district engineer for the state DOT, said the area around Exit 9 on I-95 sees over 140,000 cars a day, and the Route 1 bridge gets about 17,000 cars a day.
“The real message we want to drive home is that folks should really avoid this area,” he said, about the upcoming bridge replacement. “It will be very difficult to move around.”
Groton voters should again approve school project
The Day Editorial Board
Absurd as it seems, residents of Groton will be asked Monday for a third time to approve a large school building project. As ridiculous as this process has turned out to be, it is a good and worthwhile plan and voters should — again — give their approval.
Plus, if they don’t, it will create a real mess.
Approval number one came in 2016 when voters OK’d the plan to renovate two existing middle schools into elementary schools and build a new middle school for all the town’s grade 6-8 students. The referendum approval authorized the town to bond $184.5 million, with the state reimbursing $100 million of that cost.
The project was intended to both provide Groton students with modern facilities and address racial imbalances in the school system.
Architects and designers provided assurances this was the best approach, except that it wasn’t. As they further moved down the design process, project planners decided that two new schools for the pre-k through fifth-grade students could be built for the same price as converting the middle schools. New schools would be more energy efficient and last longer.
On Dec. 11, voters were asked to approve the amended plan, which did not change the bottom-line cost, and they did so overwhelmingly, 1,092-239. That should have finally been the end of it, with construction moving forward. Except that it wasn’t.
Turned out a fundamental requirement was botched. Legal notice of a pending referendum must be published 30 days before the vote. The notice in this case was published in The Day only 20 days prior to the vote, which in the opinion of bond counsel invalidated the subsequent results.
Thus, we have Monday’s third vote.
The danger is that voters will not be paying attention and the naysayers, who perhaps will be, will reject the referendum. The vote has been scheduled the same day as the municipal election in the City of Groton. But given that all those races are uncontested, it is questionable how much that fact will drive turnout.
Voters who recognize this as a worthwhile project need to show up.
If voters were to vote “no,” the town would be in a bad situation. The first referendum vote would still be in place, so the project could return to the original plan to renovate the middle schools into elementary schools. Yet what sense would that make given that new construction was recognized as the best option and overwhelmingly approved by voters, only to be invalidated by a technicality? A special act of the General Assembly potentially could validate the second vote, but that would be in contradiction of the third vote.
Voters can avoid this potential legal mess by voting “yes.”
The situation has had no effect on the building of the new 155,000-square-foot consolidated middle school. Construction is under way.
As to how the town got here, the buck stops with Town Clerk Betsy Moukawsher. It was Moukawsher who certified that the legal notice published Nov. 21 was done not less than 30 days prior to the referendum, which was not the case.
The clerk contends her hands were tied because Representative Town Meeting approval of the ordinance did not come until Nov. 14, not giving her time to meet the 30-day requirement. That problem could have been addressed in a couple of ways. Moukawsher could have posted the notice by the 30-day deadline and later published a cancellation notice in the unlikely event the RTM did not give its OK. Alternatively, she could have alerted town officials that the 30-day requirement could not be met, forcing a change of plans.
Either alternative would have been better than causing a situation that invalidated such an important vote.
Miscommunication with bond counsel may have been a contributing factor, but ultimately public notification falls under the town clerk’s responsibilities.
We urge Groton once more, and hopefully once and for all, to approve the school project referendum on Monday.
Lawmakers make push to wrest control of CT’s credit card from governor
Keith M. Phaneuf
Lawmakers overwhelmingly sent a bipartisan message late Wednesday to Gov. Ned Lamont: They want greater control over the state’s credit card.
The Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee voted 46-4 to approve a bill that transfers control of the State Bond Commission, a statutorily created 10-member panel that acts as a check on borrowing, from the governor to the legislature.
“The legislature does all of this work, goes to all of these public hearings” to determine which projects should receive state financing, said Sen. Kevin Witkos of Canton, the ranking Senate Republican on the finance committee. “And then it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. It goes to the governor’s office and you have to beg.”
For years, legislatures have negotiated a borrowing plan with their governor, said Rep. Patricia “Billie” Miller, D-Stamford, co-chairwoman of one of the finance panel’s two bonding subcommittees.
“We negotiate in good faith, but we have a difficult time getting our items on the (bond commission agenda,) she said. “I do agree with Senator Witkos. We do have to beg.”
Lamont has only been governor for four months and has held just one bond commission meeting during that period.
The measure, crafted by Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, co-chairman of the finance panel, was seen as part reaction to past governors’ borrowing policies and part a challenge to Lamont’s proposed “debt diet.”The state borrows billions of dollars annually to pay for school construction, capital projects at state universities, highway, bridge and rail upgrades, state building maintenance, open space and farmland preservation, and various smaller community projects.
The legislature authorizes borrowing for specific projects but the bond commission alone decides when — if ever — the state is fiscally healthy enough to actually borrow the funds by selling bonds on Wall Street.
The governor is chairman of the 10-member commission and legislators only get four seats on the panel — two from each party. In addition, the governor’s budget office has sole authority to set the panel’s agenda — long a source of frustration for lawmakers.
“The legislature should play a much greater role,” Fonfara said. “I personally don’t believe that is an appropriate division of responsibilities.”
Fonfara said the state’s investments are vital to government’s top priorities, including education, health care, economic development and transportation. In most other states, legislators take the lead in controlling borrowing, he said.
Fonfara’s bill would reshape the commission, removing the governor, his budget director and commissioner of administrative services, as well as the attorney general, comptroller and treasurer from the 10-member bond commission.
They would be replaced with six legislative leaders: the House Speaker, the Senate president pro tem, and the majority and minority leaders from both chambers.
The other four members of the commission, the top two Democrats and Republicans on the finance committee, would serve on the restructured bond panel as well.
In addition, the bond staff from the governor’s budget office would be reassigned to the legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis.
Miller said much of her frustration regarding the bond commission came from dealing with Lamont’s predecessor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who served from 2011 through early January of this year.“The previous administration funded what they wanted to fund, and it wasn’t necessarily what we wanted to fund,” she said. “We as legislators know what our communities need.”
Miller added that she doesn’t want to see the Lamont administration excluded from bonding issues either, adding she would prefer to see a compromise measure developed among both branches of government.
“I think it has to be a partnership,” she said. “And I think this bill will get us there.”
Rep. Chris Davis of Ellington, ranking House Republican on the finance committee, noted that GOP legislators often have felt their districts don’t receive their fair share of the state’s bonding money when a Democrat is the governor’s office.
Davis told Fonfara the bill would stand a better chance of enjoying bipartisan support before the full House and Senate if it included language designed to prevent partisan use of the state’s credit card.
“Capital investment should not be partisan,” Fonfara said. “D’s and R’s should have an equal opportunity and I hope we can put that into writing.”
The governor’s office issued a statement Wednesday night reiterating its objection to Fonfara’s bill and pinning the blame for the proposal on legislative opposition to Lamont’s call for a “debt diet.”
“When politics interferes with sound fiscal policy, the people of Connecticut pay the ultimate price,” Lamont spokeswoman Maribel La Luz said. “As we and the legislative leaders have already stated, Senator Fonfara’s proposal raises serious concerns from the executive and legislative branch on both sides of the aisle. It’s clearly a reaction to the Governor’s debt diet which (Wall Street credit rating agencies) have applauded and rewarded the state with an increased outlook. As we previously said, we completely reject this idea and will continue to work with the legislature to develop a responsible honest state budget.”Connecticut ranks as one of the most indebted states in the nation. Lamont called for a “debt diet” to curb this dangerous trend shortly after he took office.
Lamont wants the bond commission to approve no more than $1.3 billion in new General Obligation bonding per year. G.O. bonding is repaid using the budget’s General Fund, and involves most projects excluding transportation work.