Christopher Keating
HARTFORD — From New London to Danbury, numerous highways and
bridges will now be repaired in Connecticut with the passage of the
long-delayed federal infrastructure bill.
The Connecticut Congressional delegation hailed the passage
of the $1.25 trillion bill as they stood Monday on the train platform at
Hartford’s Union Station. They were surrounded by construction workers who will
be building the projects that include railroads and highways, among others.
Connecticut would receive $5.38 billion over the next five
years or approximately $1 billion per year. This includes $3.29 billion for
major road projects, $1.3 billion for buses and railroads, $561 million to
strengthen bridges, and $100 million for extending computer broadband coverage
around the state and to low-income families.
“Soon people in eastern Connecticut are going to see the
scaffolding for repairs start to go up at the Gold Star Bridge,” said U.S. Rep.
Joe Courtney, D-2nd. “They’ll notice construction gearing up for the new
Enfield train platform, repairs being made to the Haddam Swing Bridge, upgrades
to highways and roads across our district, and high-speed internet suddenly
available in our rural communities. When we see all of that, remember that the
bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is what’s giving us the
ability to get it all done.” Some of the projects that will receive federal
funding include:
The Gold Star Bridge
The reconstruction of the northbound side of the Gold Star
Bridge that connects New London and Groton was delayed because the state ran
out of money, officials said. Now, the federal money will cover the costs.
The state fortified the bridge on I-95 in the southbound
direction, but the northbound project was put on hold. As a result, large
trucks that are too heavy to cross the aging bridge are forced to make a
30-mile detour around other roads.
The first phase of the $250 million project that involves milling
and repaving is underway with replacement of the bridge deck to follow.
“Now, the pressure is off because the money is going to be
there so that they can finish that job,” Courtney said. “There was just not
enough money. This boosts the formula grant so that they can find the $250
million to finish Gold Star.”
Amtrak Old Saybrook Bridge
At 114 years old, the bridge has had various mechanical
problems for years.
In 2001, the drawbridge got stuck in the “down” position two
times during an eight-month period — meaning that some large boats could not
leave because the bridge would not go up. Amtrak trains were still able to
cross the bridge over the Connecticut River, which is also sometimes known as
the Old Lyme Drawbridge.
Through the decades, the bridge has undergone extensive
repairs in 1976, 1981 and 1997. Plans call for constructing a new bridge that
would be 52 feet south of the current bridge.
East Haddam Swing Bridge
Built in 1913, the 108-year-old bridge that crosses the
Connecticut River and connects Haddam and East Haddam is in serious need of
repair.
“That one breaks down all the time. That’s been a perennial
problem there‚” Courtney said Monday. “That’s the one that goes right into
Goodspeed.”
Like the aging bridge in Old Saybrook, the structure has
been repaired multiple times through the decades, including as recently as
2016. The improved bridge will carry both pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
During construction, cars would be permitted to cross the
bridge one way at a time, alternating as cars wait in the other direction on
the other side of the river.
Hartford bottleneck at I-84 and I-91
U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, said the new federal funding will
pay for a $20 million “Greater Hartford Mobility Study” to assess congestion
solutions, including a proposed $10 billion tunnel to connect Hartford and East
Hartford.
Federal officials say the Hartford project should be
constructed under the “design-build’' model that would allow it to be
constructed faster, he said. Under this strategy, the state could then apply
for competitive federal grants, which could eventually fund the tunnel project
from a larger pool of billions of dollars.
Larson backs an east-west tunnel that would run through
Hartford and then pop out near the Roberts Street exit in East Hartford, near
the Rentschler Field football stadium. Motorists heading east could travel
directly to Rentschler Field or then continue on their way along I-84 east as
they do now. In the reverse direction, motorists would enter the tunnel near
Roberts Street, drive beneath the Connecticut River, and eventually come out
near Flatbush Avenue in Hartford, which is exit 45 on I-84.
Larson’s plan would involve two tunnels, including another
running north and south where I-91 runs along the Connecticut River.
Interstate 91 bottleneck at I-691 in Meriden
For years, commuters have been backed up as they headed
south on I-91 on the way to the Wilbur Cross Parkway and Merritt Parkway.
Meanwhile, drivers trying to get onto I-691 in Meriden are often met with long
backups.
The interchange is near the top of the list for state
officials trying to make improvements along I-91.
I-84 in Danbury
One of the easiest projects to start quickly, union
officials say, is the widening of I-84 between exits 3 and 8 in Danbury.
Traffic pours on to I-84 from Route 7, a busy highway that compounds the
traffic already building on 84. That results in one of the many “choke points’'
cited by Gov. Ned Lamont when he was pushing for electronic highway tolls that
were later rejected by the legislature.
The State Bond Commission has already approved $10 million
for the design and engineering of the proposed Danbury widening, which would be
completed before construction could begin.
Improving the Metro North commute
The Congressional delegation said that the proposed railroad
improvements will cut a half-hour off the train ride from New Haven to
Manhattan. This can be accomplished with straightened tracks and newer,
high-speed rail cars, among other improvements, they said.
Lawmakers Call Federal Infrastructure Dollars ‘Transformational’
Hugh McQuaid
HARTFORD, CT — Standing on Hartford’s Union
Station train platform Monday, the state’s congressional delegation called the
weekend passage of a long-gestating $1 trillion infrastructure package a
victory for Connecticut’s highway and rail systems as well as its construction
workforce.
The U.S. House gave the massive spending bill final passage
on a bipartisan vote early Saturday morning, nearly three months after it was
approved by the Senate.
Most of the state’s congressional delegates spoke during the
Monday morning press conference and framed the expected influx in funding as a
generational investment that will support improvements to roads, bridges and
rail lines as well as expansions of broadband internet and improvements to
drinking water systems.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney said the package represented a
long-overdue investment for the entire country.
“In a state like Connecticut, with some of the oldest
infrastructure in the country, [the funding] is going to be transformational,”
Courtney said.
But exactly how much new federal support the state stands to
gain from the $1.2 trillion bill was unclear Monday. According to members of
the delegation, the bill will send nearly $5.4 billion to Connecticut through
direct investments and increases to its federal funding formula. However, the
state expects to compete for more than $100 billion in additional grants.
“Connecticut always does very well in those competitions, I
just have to be honest with you,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said. “Connecticut
generally fights above our weight class when it comes to competitive grant
programs, so we think we will do incredibly well.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the legislation dedicates
about $4 billion to roads and bridge projects, $1.3 billion for public transit
projects, and $30 billion for Amtrak rail improvements in the northeast
corridor. The lawmakers said the eventual improvements would shave a half hour
off the rail commute from New Haven to New York.
Mark Rolfe, deputy commissioner of the Transportation
Department, said the state was well-positioned to win grants for additional
funding to help the department advance priority projects.
“We’ve been planning for this for months,” Rolfe said. The
DOT hopes to use the potential new funds to expedite previously planned
projects, he said. “We’re going to look to pull some of the projects that are
in the out years and bring those forward.”
Courtney said the funding will ensure that recently-begun
repairs to the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in Groton are fully funded to
completion. He said the bridge was currently in a worrisome condition.
“The condition of that bridge is something that now people
are avoiding because of the concern that we all know exists there,” Courtney
said. “It’s starting to happen right now. There’s work actually happening today
on that bridge and what this bill does is make sure the other two phases of
fixing that bridge are going to happen and they’re going to happen fast.”
According to U.S. Rep. John Larson’s office, the bill will
also spend $445 million over five years on improvements to water infrastructure
including replacing lead pipes still in service. It will dedicate at least $100
million in funding to Connecticut to upgrade broadband internet access.
“We saw that during the pandemic when there were parts of
our state — not just the rural parts, but urban centers that did not have
broadband access,” U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes said. “You cannot work and be
competitive on any level at any job without having some access to broadband.”
The construction industry would like more specifics about
what the state is planning.
Don Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction
Industries Association, said they need some lead time to get the proper
equipment to get ready for these projects.
“We haven’t been working to capacity since 2008. Our
employment numbers in Connecticut are less than they were in 1991,” Shubert
said. “We are ready to get back to scale. Our employers are ready to go. And
just with this news the momentum is already starting to begin.”
Members of the state’s construction unions joined the
federal lawmakers on the train platform Monday and applauded the bill’s
expected boon to their trade.
“Five billion dollars means a decade of work for decades of
waiting,” Keith Brothers, president of the Connecticut State Building Trades
Council, said. Brothers said the work would be done with Connecticut workers.
“I will tell you this, if the building trades was on the stock market and you
could buy stock, I’d buy it because this is our time.”
‘Infrastructure Week’ is here: State preparing massive plan for projects
Paul Hughs
HARTFORD – U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District, summed up
the next job for Democrats after finally passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure
package – making sure people in Connecticut know what they are going to get out
of massive federal spending bill.
Hayes and other members of the state’s all-Democratic
congressional delegations were all smiles Monday morning ahead of a news
conference on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at Union Station in
Hartford.
At long last, Infrastructure Week had finally arrived, going
from a long-running political joke to a political reality following final
passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the U.S. House over the
weekend.
“In 2018, that was supposed to be our No. 1 issue –
infrastructure. It was the one thing everyone could agree upon, and we didn’t
get it done,” Hayes said on the platform of Union Station. “But on Friday,
actually Saturday morning, we got this done. We passed this infrastructure bill
that people are describing as transformational because it is. There are so many
things to talk about in the bill.”
Later, Hayes returned to that final point – making sure
everyday people know what the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act means for
them and their families.
“That is why we are here today. That is what we are going to
do: Get out and make sure people understand and appreciate how significant this
is,” she said.
THE SELLING JOB CONTINUED when Hayes joined Democratic
Gov. Ned Lamont later Monday afternoon at the Ansonia Train Station to mark the
coming completion of improvements to the Waterbury branch line of the
Metro-North Railroad.
The state is wrapping up $116 million upgrade including
signalization and passing sidings that will allow the single-track railroad
that will allow trains to pass in both directions. The focus Monday was $1.2
million in state funding to increase number of daily trains from 15 to 22
starting in mid-2022, and to increase the number of daily trains from 12 to 15
on weekends.
Lamont imagined the additional upgrades that could be made
to the 27.7-mile commuter rail line that runs between Waterbury and Milford using
some of the nearly $5.4 billion in dedicated funding coming to Connecticut,
plus billions more in competitive grants that will also be available.
“Look, you just saw the train go by,” he said, “and less
than a year from now we’re going to have two-way service, and those cars going
back and forth, those trains will be much more frequent than they are today.”
He envisioned train station platforms being upgraded so
train riders seamlessly board trains without having to step up, and new
passenger cars with air conditioning and 5G services, and new locomotives, too.
Lamont said a revamped Waterbury line will spur economic and
housing development up and down the Naugatuck Valley.
“You’re not going to recognize what you see here in the next
10 years,” he said.
THE STATE GOVERNMENT IS PREPARING a list of
transportation and other infrastructure projects to be financed with this
massive influx of federal funding.
“We’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” Lamont
said.
The state Department of Transportation earlier this year
released a 5-year capital plan that programmed $9 billion in state and federal
spending through the 2025 fiscal year.
The DOT is looking to use the potential new federal funds to
expedite some of these previously planned projects, and also to push up the
schedule for other projects included in the state’s long-term transportation,
said Mark Rolfe, deputy transportation commissioner.
“We’ve been planning for this for months,” he said.
Representatives of the construction industry and trade unions
are also eagerly awaiting the additional state and federal spending.
“Five billion dollars means a decade of work for decades of
waiting,” said Keith Brothers, president of the Connecticut State Building
Trades Council.
The nearly $5.4 billion in dedicated funding represents a
$1.63 billion increase over the most recent transportationtion bill enacted in
2015.
“This is what we’ve been looking for for two decades,” said
Don Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association.
“Our industry, of course, we were hit hardest by the Great Recession. We
haven’t recovered. This is a giant step forward for us.”
He said the five-years of guaranteed federal funding is
providing the construction industry a level of certainty that it has been lacking
for years. He said the construction companies are looking to state
transportation officials to get shovel-ready projects in the funding pipeline.
“Our big concern right now is DOT and how quickly they can
actually turn this into projects,” Shubert said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., predicted the federal
government under President Joe Biden will not be a holdup.
“Nobody is more impatient, I can tell you, than Joe Biden to
get this money out there into roads, and bridges and rail,” he said.
Brookfield's new school pushes start date after supply chain, material delays
BROOKFIELD — Young Brookfielders eager to start their school day in the shiny,
new Candlewood Lake Elementary School next year will now have to wait a little
longer.
Significant supply chain delays for the school
construction project have led officials to push back the date students
will arrive in their new classrooms.
The project, which was previously running on schedule, is
now at least three to four months delayed after officials learned that
essential roofing material expected to arrive in November is now estimated to
be delivered around February, according to Board of Education chair Rosa
Fernandes.
So instead of moving all students over to the new $78.1
million, nearly 139,000-square-foot elementary school midway through the
next school year, officials are hoping to get everyone moved into the buildings
for the start of the 2023-24 school year.
The new school is designed to accommodate all
pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students in Brookfield, and will
eventually integrate teaching staff from three different schools— Center
Elementary School, which will close, Huckleberry Hill Elementary School, which
will be demolished, and the fifth grade staff from Whisconier Middle School,
who currently work in portable classrooms.
“While this news is not what we planned for or anticipated,
we must acknowledge that we have been given the gift of time. You all know that
the one thing we cannot buy is time,” wrote Superintendent John Barile in an
email to the community announcing the delays.
Construction crews broke ground on the site in March and
have swiftly moved forward since then.
The project built in long workdays for the construction crew
and “float days,” or cushion days, that allowed for smaller delays like
inclement weather, according to Paul Checco, chair of the Municipal Building
Committee.
But without roofing, the interior building construction
cannot move forward.
“You can’t enclose or weather-proof the building, so nothing
on the inside can start,” Fernandes explained. “The roofing material in
particular is a really, really troublesome delay.”
Fernandes added Checco discussed pulling together materials
piecemeal from other manufacturers, but that would mean the expensive roof
would not have a warranty. And while the delays are a short-term disappointment,
in the long term, the new school will be very well built, Fernandes said.
Second grade through fourth grade are now expected to move
into the new building in January of 2023, and by late August, pre-kindergarten,
kindergarten and first grade classes are expected to arrive in their new
classrooms.
Huckleberry Hill School will begin demolition in the winter
of 2023, instead of next summer.
The delay also means proposed staffing that was to be
announced by Barile this December will now be presented at a later date,
according to a Board of Education powerpoint
presentation.
Fernandes said they don’t yet have “absolute confirmation”
that student move-in will start in January of 2023 since more construction
still needs to take place, but are hoping for that date.
“Unfortunately, if it was a delay in other things later in
the project, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal because we can work on other
things simultaneously,” she said.
A graphic
from the International Monetary Fund depicting supply chain delivery
time shows a sharp slowing in delivery time starting at the end of 2020,
reflecting surging demand paired with supply constraints. Locally, the effects
have already been felt.
New Milford’s high
school roof construction project also took a big hit this year as
labor and material shortages drove up construction prices, contributing to a
roughly $870,000 cost increase.
However, the delays faced by Brookfield are not currently
expected to add to the construction cost, according to Barile. The only
financial adjustment will likely involve segmenting the schools’ moving costs
into two parts.
Barile added that he had “no other reason to think, or other
info that would tell me, there would be other supply chain issues.”
Moving forward
With the altered timeline, this year’s fourth graders will
not get a chance to enjoy the new school, which Fernandes said was a
disappointment.
Barile will schedule several virtual and in-person forums
during the next year to keep staff and parents up-to-date on the project and
answer any questions.
In his view, the delays, while unfortunate, will allow the
community time to say goodbye to the historic buildings and to plan out the
transition and staffing needs.
“You can always look at it as a negative, or you can look at
it as an opportunity,” he said.
Center Elementary School was built in 1938, and is the only
all-wood school building remaining in the state, according to the district
website. Its most recent renovation was now nearly a quarter century ago.
Huckleberry Hill Elementary was built in 1965 and was last renovated in 1993.
Both schools, which will cease to exist with the new Candlewood Lake Elementary
School, saw thousands of children come through their doors over their tenures.
In an email to the community, Barile elaborated: “We will
utilize this additional time to team build with the PreK-5 faculty,
collaboratively plan and develop activities to celebrate the history of each
school.”
That vexing downtown New Haven detour is going away
NEW HAVEN — The day is finally coming.
The detour
off South Frontage Road will be gone on Wednesday morning.
The roadway, which carries traffic east to Interstates 95
and 91, has been closed
since June between College and Church streets. It will reopen “by the
morning commute,” Anna Mariotti of HTNB Corp., the city’s consultant on
Downtown Crossing, said Monday.
“It’s a process to take it down. They have to remove the
cement barriers, the barrels. They to cover up detour signs,” she said.
The stretch of road was closed in order to raise it 8 feet.
The higher grade is in preparation for a bridge between
Temple Street and Congress Avenue, which will be part of Downtown Crossing’s
Phase 4. The work being done now on South Frontage Road and between that road
and Martin Luther King Boulevard is Phase 3.
Lafayette Street, which has been one-way as part of the
detour route, will go back to being a two-way street. That will remove the
safety issue in which drivers were turning left from the right lane of
Lafayette Street, making it difficult for drivers in the left lane to turn
right onto South Frontage. When the traffic is heavy and drivers aren’t
accommodating, those following the proper traffic pattern could have had to
continue straight onto Church Street.
York Street, which was made two-way between Howard Avenue
and South Frontage Road, will remain two ways for now, Mariotti said.
When it’s reopened, South Frontage will have three travel
lanes. A new far-left fourth lane will be closed to accommodate construction of
101 College St., according to a release.
“We’re excited to see the progress happening as we continue
to the work to reconnect the Hill to downtown,” Mayor Justin Elicker said in an
emailed statement. “The reopening of South Frontage Road is great news as it
will help reduce congestion in the area and improve safety for all travelers.”
The reconnection of Orange Street across the old Route 34
has been held up by weather and nationwide shipping problems, Mariotti said.
“There’s a couple of pedestrian signal heads and a bracket
that have been backordered and held up by the supply chain issues,” she said.
“They’re finally on a truck on their way.”
Mariotti said she hoped the intersection, the first
protected bike and pedestrian crosswalk in the state, would be open “no later
than mid-December” but that an announcement would be made “once we have a solid
date we can say with confidence.”
Over the summer and into the fall, drivers using the detour
off South Frontage Road to get onto the interstate highways were making an
improper turn, potentially causing a safety problem, according to Mariotti.
Mariotti recommended an episode of the podcast “Along the Lines” by Rich
Andreski, chief of the state Department of Transportation’s public transit
bureau, which discusses Downtown Crossing in-depth.