Major Connecticut River bridge to get $30 million work. Your commute may be affected
The state is preparing for a $30 million refurbishment of
the Bissell
Bridge, a key traffic link between I-84 and I-91 north of Hartford.
Work won’t start for two years, but engineers are cautioning
that the bridge — heavily used at the morning and afternoon rush hours — will
require lane closures and potentially some weekend shutdowns during
construction.
Precise construction plans won’t be known until engineers do
final designs in 2025, but the state department of transportation is letting
the public know now that some potentially major weekend detours could be
required in 2026 or 2027.
“As this is a river crossing, detour routes are pretty
lengthy,” Jen Pixley, an engineer with CHA Consulting, acknowledged in a public
presentation last week. “It’s not definite this will happen.”
The DOT is seeking to limit any complete shutdowns to
weekends, when traffic is lighter. Even so, the bridge gets a significant
amount of traffic on all days.
“The bridge is heavily traveled, with an average daily
traffic of just over 62,000,” Pixley said.
The DOT and its consultants will do detailed traffic studies
in 2025 to determine whether construction can be phased in a way that allows no
more than one or two lanes to be closed at a time.
“As part of the final design phase, we will do some traffic
counts to determine the volumes we’re dealing with. We’ll understand if one
lane of traffic is sufficient or if we have to do a detour,” said Meziane
Meziani, supervising engineer with the DOT.
If complete shutdowns are necessary, motorists would need to
go miles out of their way, the DOT acknowledged.
Getting between the I-291 ramps at I-91 in Windsor at I-84
in South Windsor, for instance, would require one of two routes. For the first,
drivers would head north to the Dexter Coffin Bridge between Windsor Locks and
East Windsor, a roughly 16-mile detour. Alternately, they could go south to the
Bulkeley Bridge in Hartford, which would add 8 to 9 miles to a trip, the DOT
said.
The DOT hasn’t done estimates of the time that would add.
The DOT’s public presentation was done partly to let
commuters, businesses and local officials know about what’s ahead.
“The Bissell Bridge is the town of South Windsor’s
connection to Windsor. While we expect there may be minor delays on the bridge
due to the DOT reconstruction, we are hopeful there is nothing too
significant,” South Windsor Town Manager Michael Maniscalco said Wednesday.
“That said, we will advise drivers to plan alternate route and to allot plenty
of time if traveling in the area.”
Commercial shippers and the mega-warehouses around the
Bradley International Airport region could be affected, since I-291 provides a
rapid link to I-84 and northern New England.
Regardless of what’s done with car and truck traffic, the
DOT anticipates temporarily closing the popular bike and pedestrian path along
the north side of the Bissell Bridge during part of the construction. It’s a
1.4-mile like between Main Street in South Windsor and Windsor Meadows State
Park in Windsor.
The 65-year-old bridge last underwent major work in 1993,
when the superstructure was replaced and traffic lanes were expanded to two in
each direction along with the 8-foot-wide multi-use path. It was once
envisioned as part of a beltway loop around Hartford, linking Farmington on the
western end and Rocky Hill on the east.
Contractors will repair structural steel, replace worn
bridge deck joints and make other improvements. The project is funded through
90% federal grants and 10% state money, with no town dollars involved, Pixley
noted.
Work on New Haven's State Street won't cause traffic nightmares, city engineer says
NEW HAVEN — If you're one of those people worried that the
$6.7 million State Street redesign project that recently began will
cause traffic nightmares, you can relax for now.
City Engineer
Giovanni Zinn says the
project to make a nine-block stretch of lower State Street more
pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly won't involve street closures and will
ultimately improve traffic and safety.
Any traffic disruption during the work will be
minimal, Zinn said. The city will maintain "bidirectional
traffic" throughout construction, although there may be short periods of
road closures, he said.
"It’s more lane shifts than lane closures in Phase 1,
as you see out there now," Zinn said, referring to work that recently
began near the Encore by Goodfellas restaurant.
"On-street parking will be temporarily closed as we
work on various areas," he said. "We are generally keeping legal
parking where it exists, with some parking shifting around within a
block."
"If anything, at the end of this, it's going to be a
great improvement on State Street," Zinn said. The result will be a much
more livable street, he said.
Among other things, he said, the traffic lights will be
better synchronized, and dedicated turning lanes will be less disruptive when
someone stops to make a turn.
The $6.7 million project, partially funded through a $5.35
million state Department of Economic and Community Development grant, will
redesign the streetscape along a stretch of State Street
between Trumbull and Water streets.
City officials have said the project will "knit back
together" areas of the city that were chopped up by urban renewal. Several
officials have said the project will reconnect neighborhoods such
as Wooster Square, the Hill and Downtown.
Zinn said it will also make State Street safer for the many
people who aren't in motor vehicles.
"Thirty percent of the households in New Haven don't
have cars," Zinn said. "A lot of people walk in that area ... a
lot of them ride bicycles."
"I think the goal here is to create a street that's
much safer for our vulnerable users," Zinn said. The city also aims to
create a much smoother street for commuters, with more potential for
development as parking lots along State Street's east side are opened up, he
said.
Work on Phase 1 of the project began about two weeks ago and
will create a dedicated corridor for walkers and bikers, officials said at a
news conference Wednesday. The project's first phase will also include
"bump-outs" to protect pedestrians along State Street,
from Trumbull Street to Grove Street, with the second phase running from
Grove Street to Water Street, Mayor Justin Elicker said. Phase 1 is expected to
last through the end of the summer.
Elicker said Phase 2 will include "activating"
several underused parking lots for future development.
The project aims to unlock the redevelopment potential of
seven parking lots, with 650,000 square feet of transit-oriented, mixed-use
development, including 450 new housing units, plus retail space, officials
said.
State Street, one of New Haven’s major corridors, connects
the Downtown, East Rock, Hill and Wooster Square neighborhoods. The area
includes the State Street train station.
Hartford’s Bushnell South project takes big step forward with purchase of large parking lot
HARTFORD — The closing of a key real estate deal this week
has brought Hartford’s ambitious
Bushnell South development closer to a groundbreaking.
Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners
exercised its option on Tuesday to buy a 90,000-square-foot parking lot at
Capitol Avenue and Hudson Street for $3.25 million, according to the Capital
Region Development Authority.
The authority
voted in January to loan Spinnaker $3 million toward the purchase,
which forms a crucial piece of the Bushnell South development and speeds
development of the project.
About 250 parking spots, billboards, and an auto shop
currently occupy the newly purchased parking lot. The property will likely be
developed as a parking garage for the larger Bushnell South project, which
involves several developers and multiple phases.
Envisioned as an entirely new
neighborhood with housing, retail, and amenities, the Bushnell South
project is not expected to be completed until the 2030s but construction of
initial phases could begin in as soon as three years, CRDA Executive Director
Mike Freimuth said.
Cutting-edge “mass
timber” technology was pitched for the $130 million first phase of the project,
two mid-rise apartment buildings housing 233 apartments that are set to be
built by The Michaels Organization.
The Bushnell theater has expressed concern about the closing
of surface lots in the Capitol area as construction nears on the Bushnell South
project and more
drivers return to downtown Hartford.
But Freimuth has said the lot Spinnaker purchased this week
is often vacant due to the opening of two new parking garages in the area.
Local officials have also expressed concern
about the current number of surface parking lots in Hartford, which occupy
22 percent of the land in downtown.
170 units proposed for Shelton’s Fountain Square development
ANew Jersey-based developer has submitted revised plans for
the residential component of the Fountain Square mixed-use project in Shelton.
The Shelton Planning and Zoning Commission at a hearing
Wednesday heard plans from applicant F.S. Shelton LLC and principal John Abene
for a five-story, multi-unit apartment complex at 745-801 Bridgeport Ave.
The $25 million project, by developer Highview Commercial,
would feature 170 apartments, a portion of which would be affordable. The
development would feature nine studio apartments and 81 one-bedroom, eight
one-bedroom with office, and 72 two-bedroom apartments, along with a pool, club
house and other amenities.
The plans call for 52 affordable units, half at 80% of the
area median income (AMI), and half at 60%, the development team said. The
remaining apartments would be market rate.
The board last year denied a plan that called for 152 units,
18% of which would be affordable at 80% AMI.
Plans previously approved for a 123-room hotel and office
space were scrapped for the residential building.
If approved, the apartment building would sit among several
new commercial buildings, including restaurants, medical and retail sites that
are a part of the multimillion-dollar Fountain Square development area that has
been in the works since 2019.