Amtrak Talks Connecticut River Bridge Replacement, High-Speed Rail Planning
Cate Hewitt
Since 2016, when southeastern Connecticut learned of a plan
by the Federal Railroad Administration to construct a high-speed rail bypass
through several historic towns in the region between Old Saybrook and
Charlestown, RI, town officials and members of the public have been paying
closer attention to rail projects along the Northeast Corridor.
Last Friday, CT Examiner talked by phone with Amtrak’s Jason
Hoover, Assistant Vice President of Major Programs–Bridges, who is overseeing
the replacement of the century-old Connecticut River Rail Bridge, and Joseph
Barr, Director of Network Development in the East Coast, who is working on the
New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study.
Questions ranged from the big picture of Amtrak’s goals for
the Northeast Corridor to specific information about the replacement of the
Connecticut River Bridge, and whether an off-corridor solution will be required
for the just-launched study for high-speed rail routes between New Haven and
Providence.
The following interview has been edited for length and
clarity.
CTEx: What are the goals of Amtrak along the Northeast
Corridor between New York and Boston in the next 15 to 20 years?
J. Hoover: I’m the guy in charge of trying to replace
some of these elderly bridges in our network, so obviously the Connecticut
River Bridge is one of them. Doubling ridership is our goal by 2040 and to do
that this project is a good example that we need resilient infrastructure
that’s dependable. The Connecticut River Bridge was built in 1907. It’s well
past its useful life. The replacement will increase speeds from 45 to 70 miles
per hour, and reliability. Those are two big factors that we feel are really
going to contribute to doubling our ridership on the NEC, or nationwide
actually, by 2040.
J. Barr: Our overall goal nationally is to double
ridership by 2040 as well as to get to net zero emissions by 2045. The NEC is
our strongest ridership corridor to start with, so when we’re looking at
doubling ridership on a national basis, obviously the NEC is a big part of that
although I also want to make sure that we never downplay the importance of our
long distance routes as well.
I’m working on and responsible for the New Haven to Providence Capacity
Planning Study. The goals we have are about bringing the corridor closer to a
state of good repair, but also making the strategic investments in capacity,
like the Gateway Program in
and around New York, and other programs that set us up for her growth in the
future, get us to our ridership goal, and also support our other partners up
and down the NEC that operate service on tracks we own – and we operate service
on tracks that they own. Through the NEC commission, we work towards ensuring
that this is serving all of our partners.
The Connecticut River River Bridge
How will the replacement of the CT River Bridge improve service in terms of
speed, capacity and reliability?
J. Hoover: The existing bridge is 117 years old and
ongoing maintenance is becoming a growing cost and concern. With a less
reliable bridge, it affects not only our passengers, but mariners as well. The
new bridge will be completely modernized with mechanical [and] electrical
systems and all the safety systems that really come with the current design
standards of the industry.
The speeds over the bridge right now are restricted to 45 miles an hour so that
affects capacity. The new bridge will be designed for 70 miles an hour. A 25
mile an hour increase in operating speed will benefit not only Amtrak but the
other tenants of the bridge – Shore Line East and also the freight railroads
that use it as well. So we’re really excited about being able to provide a more
reliable, more robust, modern replacement for this infrastructure that will
also increase speeds, so it’s a win-win across the board there.
Can you be more specific about how many more trains per day
can run due to the increased allowable speed on the Connecticut River bridge?
J. Hoover: I don’t know that it’s as simple as ‘because
we replaced the bridge we can gain this many more trains.’ The bridge is part
of the entire network. I think the measure that would probably be a better
indicator of the replacement is the potential effect on service when the bridge
needs maintenance or we’re in a position where we need to issue a slow order or
something. Those types of metrics are probably a more accurate indication of
how the bridge replacement will be an immediate improvement.
In a recent letter to Amtrak, Old Lyme First Selectman
Martha Shoemaker complained that the town has not been given sufficient time,
just 30 days, to provide comment and concerns regarding the project. Can you
respond to that?
J. Hoover: We’ve been working with the CT DEEP and the
US Army Corps of Engineers for years due to the vast array of things that we
need to evaluate. The construction and associated temporary works are going to
impact both environmentally and archaeologically and we’ve been working hand in
hand with CT DEEP and the Corps of Engineers.
The public outreach portion of that has been extensive. I know it’s been a long
time in the making. I think maybe the selectwoman that recently issued her
concerns may have not been in place during some of the earlier outreach
efforts. We’ve had numerous public meetings and actually are going to be
responding to the selectwoman through the Corps soon, because we do hear her
concerns.
We’ve been working with the local folks and the regulatory commission,
committees and agencies for many, many years and the mitigation plan that we’ve
come up with we feel is robust and fully coordinated. We’re happy to share that
with both Old Lyme and Old Saybrook representatives and we’re in the process of
being ready to do that.
Do you have a timeline on that?
J. Hoover: We responded to the [Army] Corps this week
and the Army Corps will be responding since the [selectwoman’s] letter was sent
to them.
Is there going to be another public meeting?
J. Hoover: We haven’t determined that yet. We had a
public meeting in February that was open and well attended. I’m not sure if
we’re going to have another one or not. We’re really looking to finalize the
permitting process and we’re working closely with DEEP and the Corps to do
that.
How will the logistics for the construction be handled and
are most of the materials coming in by truck, train or barge? How many workers
will be employed on the project at any one time?
J. Hoover: The logistics of the project are very
challenging. Obviously, there’s environmentally sensitive areas on both sides
of the river crossing. The access to the bridge and the construction of the
bridge is very complicated. The materials will be arriving by a combination of
barge and truck and we will be closely monitoring the truck traffic. The barge
work associated with the bridge construction has been coordinated through the
Corps. There’s dredging that’s going to be required that is in the process of
being fully permitted. We’re excited to be at the precipice of being ready to
go to construction.
As far as the construction workers, it’s hard to say a peak number, but we’re
doing a bridge similar to this in New Jersey, and they’ve got 400 to 500
workers working at one time. I’m not sure that this bridge is going to reach
that level, it’s not quite as large, but it’s certainly a large effort and
we’re anxious to get the contractor on board to start to work through those
logistics.
Can you step us through any remaining approvals or hoops
prior to starting work?
J. Hoover: We are at the final stages of the joint
permit application with CT DEEP and the Corps. Following that, we’ll be ready
to obtain the final Coast Guard permit. Those are the permits that are left for
us to get to work. We’re really close to those being ready to go. Right now
we’re also working to get our construction contractor under contract. We’re on
track there, so we really hope to be ready to start the job in earnest. In late
summer, early fall, we’ll be in really good shape.
Is there anything else about the project that we haven’t
covered?
J. Hoover: I just want the message to be out there that
we understand that the project is in a sensitive environmental area where it’s
front of mind for us. Public outreach is front of mind and that’ll continue to
ramp up as construction gets closer. We’re fully committed to coordinating with
the vast number of parties that are going to be in and around the construction
and the impacts that we’re going to look to mitigate.
The New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study
Can you give us the latest timeline on the study?
J. Barr: The latest timeline is we are just about to
formally start the procurement for the consultants. We’ll be releasing a letter
of interest request to consultants probably within the next week or so, which
then, hopefully, will fairly quickly lead to requests for proposals. Then we
would hire a consultant and get them under contract over the late spring and
summer. We want to get the study formally launched with the consultants on
board by late summer or early fall, and then it’s about 18 to 24 months to get
the study completed – my guess is it’ll probably be closer to the 24 month
timeframe.
Our intent is to start the work on the outreach and community engagement front
– that will be what people see first. Then, only after we’ve been talking for
some period of time will we start to develop and then share any conceptual
alternatives or ideas of what the improvements might look like.
So the study hasn’t started yet?
J. Barr: Correct. We’ve been doing some outreach, in
terms of talking with our state partners, particularly in Connecticut and Rhode
Island. We’ve made a couple of presentations to the MPOs – metropolitan
planning organizations – both in Rhode Island and Connecticut to try to get
state and municipal stakeholders up to speed, but it’s all about the process
and how we’re going to execute the study – nothing specific yet about the
conceptual proposal or any type of physical improvements that we might be
suggesting.
What spurred Amtrak to initiate the study? It was our
understanding in 2017 that the intent was for the states to take the lead in
finding a solution for high-speed rail between New Haven and Providence.
J. Barr: It’s a really good question because that is a
bit of a change from what was originally in the NEC Future Record of Decision,
which spoke specifically to Connecticut and Rhode Island pursuing the study. In
the interim, there’s been a lot of discussions and we felt like it was
important for us to take a leadership role on this study to ensure that it
moves forward. But that required a lot of discussions with both the state as
well as with the FRA.
After a lot of conversation including checking in with the environmental team
from FRA and their legal folks just to make sure that it would be okay for
Amtrak to take the next step, given what was in the Record of Decision,
basically the answer we got back was yes. But, we need to have official
concurrence and support from the two state DOTs, and also approval and
concurrence from the FRA – and so we went through that whole process over the
past several years of discussions and ultimately came to the decision that,
yes, Amtrak can move forward.
Then, when the NEC inventory project that the FRA published in late 2022 was
issued, Amtrak was listed as the lead agency for the grant application. That’s
also been recognized in some of the work that the NEC Commission has done
through the Connect
NEC 2035 and Connect NEC 2037. After
all those conversations, everyone agreed that yes, Amtrak could take the lead
on this. And so, we ultimately submitted the grant application back in the
spring of 2023 and then received the award late last year.
We’ve heard from Joe Courtney’s office that a Hartford to
Providence solution is off the table. Could you speak to that? I think that was
actually part of Amtrak’s preferred alternative back in the early stages of NEC
Future.
J. Barr: The overall answer I would say is that nothing
is fully on or off the table within the study area. There was a another project
that we did in the interim, called the New Haven to Providence Market Study,
which did not look at all that physical alignments but looked at market demand
and the results of that didn’t indicate a huge amount of demand between
Hartford and Providence, which is a question that’s been sort of floating out
there. Based on that, you wouldn’t say there’s a really strong reason to add
the Providence to Hartford connection, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve
eliminated it from consideration – it just means that maybe there’s less of a
rationale for that… and the market study didn’t give us a strong reason to
place it higher on the priority list.
It’s our understanding that the NEC Future Record of
Decision requires any solution to have a significant off-corridor component.
Could you speak to that?
J. Barr: The NEC Future EIS [Environmental Impact
Study] was a Tier One EIS, which is sort of a programmatic level. So although
it did define what we’re trying to accomplish and spoke to specific types of
improvements that could happen, as we work our way into the study, we’re going
to be taking all that into account, but we’re not necessarily bound to do
exactly what was proposed in there. And, particularly in this area, they sort
of drew a bubble around it and said, ‘we need to do some more study,’ and so
this is that ‘more study.’
I think we need to be cognizant of NEC Future and what the performance metrics
were and what the proposals were, but ultimately, we want to figure out what
makes the most sense and what’s feasible physically and based on the community
engagement, et cetera, et cetera. And then, [we can] kind of work back towards
the NEC Record of Decision and figure out how do we use that to move forward
whatever improvements we want to make within that context.
So it’s a complicated relationship between the study and the NEC Future Record
of Decision. Obviously NEC the future is not irrelevant, but it’s one of many
background pieces of input that we’ll be taking into account. And then once we
get through this study, figuring out, okay, how do we move forward beyond that.
I know there’s a lot of questions about how this relates to NEC Future and I
think that that is a question we’re going to wind up having to answer as we do
this study. It’s not something we necessarily give a definitive answer to at
the outset because it really depends on where we end up with the study.
The Kenyon to Old Saybrook bypass was dropped in the face of
public opposition. Is there any other solution that’s being proposed and is the
bypass still on the table?
J. Barr: Again, we know that that was from the context
of NEC Future. We know that was very controversial and there are people who are
ready to have that conversation again if that gets brought up again. Again, my
response to all of this is really we’ll see what happens as we do the study. I
don’t want to take anything off the table completely because I’m sure it’s hard
to imagine a world where that doesn’t get brought up because people know it’s
out there in the NEC Future and it’s been discussed in other studies even prior
to that – it didn’t just come out of nowhere. But other ideas may come forward
and we need to be open to look at everything and talk about those things with
people.
Obviously we understand some of the concerns that were raised before but
whatever ideas and whatever concepts we’re putting forward, I understand
people’s thoughts and reactions to those – and how can we mitigate impacts, how
can we create co-benefits of the project, etc., etc., and then figure out what
we want to move forward with.
I don’t want to say we’re starting with a clean sheet of paper because
obviously there’s a lot that came before this but we do want to make sure that
we’re not starting with any preconceived notions about what the right answer
might turn out to be, whether somehow that idea does come back to the
forefront. I don’t know that it will, but I can’t say it won’t, or if there’s
some other idea that’s out there that is new and different.
I mean, by the time we initiate the study, it will have been over a decade
since NEC Future started and seven or eight years since the ROD was issued.
There’s been a lot of learning since then, and so maybe there’ll be other ideas
that get thrown out there. Like I said, I don’t want to either dismiss or say
definitely on anything until we’ve really gotten into the community discussions
and then started to come up with concept ideas.
Is there any chance of overriding the Record of Decision’s
mandate for an off-corridor solution or is that the law of the land and you
have to include it?
J. Barr: The thing about the environmental impact
statements is that it provides an environmental clearance for the specific
things that are in there under any scenario. I’m not saying we’re doing this,
but let’s say we were doing the Kenyon to Old Saybrook bypass, we would still
have to do a project specific EIS for that building on the Tier One that was
done for NEC future. So there would be additional environmental review as well
as specific environmental permitting of the type that Jason [Hoover] is dealing
with to actually get this to be a ‘real project.’
An environmental impact statement never requires you to do something, it just
provides a clearance for a project if you decide you want to move that project
forward. Like I said earlier, we want to see how the study goes, figure out
what types of improvements we’re looking at and how those relate to the Tier
One ROD, and then figure out, are we moving forward with a project-specific EIS
that’s within the framework of the the original NEC Future Rod? Or, are we
saying we’re looking at something that’s different enough that we actually have
to start over on the environmental clearance, NEPA work, as well as state
environmental permitting and clearance and local etc., etc., and just say we
have a different project and therefore we have to think about this
differently?
Again, I don’t know if that’s where we’re going to end up but I don’t want to
presume that we couldn’t. We recognize that given all the controversy and
concerns about the prior NEC Future proposals that we want to get to something
that can address the things we’re trying to deal with here, which is long term
resiliency questions as well as the speed and reliability issues. We want to
get to something that’s possible to actually move forward and address those
issues and hopefully explain to local communities why these improvements and
infrastructure upgrades are necessary in order to preserve their ability to get
around as well as economic development, community development – all the real goals
that should be driving what we do.
Is there anything you want to add?
J. Barr: I just want to re-emphasize that we’re
starting from the position of where we want to address the speed and
reliability issues as well as the resiliency issues with the existing corridor.
But, we’ll be working with the communities to better define the purpose of the
project, and then figure out from there what improvements meet those needs –
[rather than] starting with these are our physical improvements and this is how
we justify them.
Opponents of possible expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Coventry set to meet Thursday
COVENTRY — Opponents of a possible expansion of a natural
gas pipeline that runs through Connecticut are to meet Thursday in Coventry,
where the company that owns the line is proposing a new regulation facility.
The proposed station at Hop River and Bunker Hill roads, to
be built this year, is meant to regulate pressure in the section of the
Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline between Cromwell and Chaplin, according to
filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Sierra Club Connecticut members and other opponents,
however, say the facility is more likely part of Canadian energy company
Enbridge's veiled approach to greatly expand capacity of the pipeline section
that runs from New York to Massachusetts. Opponents object to expanded fossil
fuel infrastructure and say methane from the fracking process and inevitable
leaks along the line pose a hazard to humans and the overall environment. They
are set to meet and invite the public to join them at 7 p.m. at the Booth &
Dimock Memorial Library, 1134 Main St. in Coventry.
As the proposed location is not far from Coventry's borders
with Andover, Columbia, and Willimantic, organizers are inviting those from
surrounding communities to join them Thursday.
“Building new fossil gas infrastructure adds significant
greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, further harming the climate,
poisons local communities, and increases costs to consumers," Kate
Donnelly, a representative of the opponents' coalition, said. "The town of
Coventry has no official say in whether this (regulation station) is built, but
can still take a stand opposing it if they so choose."
Jana Roberson, Coventry's director of planning and
development, confirmed that the town has no zoning or wetlands jurisdiction
over the proposed construction, which is at the site of an existing pipeline
facility. Only a building permit would be needed from the town, Roberson said.
FERC found in a recent environmental assessment that approval of the proposed
station "would not constitute a major federal action significantly
affecting the quality of the human environment."
Because it is not yet a formal proposal, FERC has made no
findings on what is being called Project Maple. Enbridge says the project would
"provide much-needed supply reliability during peak daily demand, while
stabilizing energy prices in the region and supporting New England’s continued
journey to net zero." The work would include replacing existing pipe with
larger diameter pipe and adding compression at existing compressor stations,
according to the company.
"Existing pipeline infrastructure has played a critical
role in the emissions reduction success New England has achieved to date,"
an Enbridge public notice says, "however, natural gas demand in New
England continues to grow and additional pipeline capacity will be required to
maintain a reliable and affordable supply of energy."
Additional pipeline capacity dedicated to gas-fired power
generators, according to Enbridge, "is also essential to providing rapid
ramping capability as they are increasingly called upon to offset the supply
gaps that occur as solar production wanes coincident with the peak day demand
in the evening."
"With further proliferation of solar and wind
resources, in combination with increased electrification of the economy, this
phenomenon will become even more prevalent in winter months,"
the Enbridge notice said.
At this point, however, the company is only exploring
interest in the project, which would not begin until November 2029.
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
is aware of Project Maple, but "as no application has been submitted to
DEEP, it would be premature to comment on the project," agency
spokesperson Paul Copleman said. The state Public Utilities Regulatory
Authority has no jurisdiction over gas transmission pipeline projects, agency
spokesperson Tarren O'Connor said.
More broadly, Copleman said, the strategy of Gov. Ned
Lamont's administration "is to provide clean, affordable, and reliable
energy to the residents and businesses of Connecticut, and to
achieve our state’s statutory
target of 100 percent zero-carbon electricity by 2040, as set out by the
General Assembly in 2022."
Opponents have circulated a petition that
calls on Lamont to "protect the health and safety of all
Connecticut residents by publicly opposing Project Maple and directing state
agencies to prevent this project from being approved."
Currently, about 42 percent of Connecticut households use
heating oil or other petroleum products for home heating and 36
percent use natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration. In 2022, natural gas fueled 55 percent of the state's
electricity generation, while the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford
generated 37 percent, the agency reported.
ISO New England reported that overall electricity use in the
region is expected to increase 2.3 percent annually up to 2032.
Connecticut residents pay some of the highest energy bills
in the nation, but Donnelly said renewable energy and more-efficient energy use
are the solutions, not more fossil fuels.
Greenwich's Central Middle School rebuild will get about $15 million more than expected from state
GREENWICH — Greenwich is slated to receive millions more
than expected on the Central Middle School rebuild, thanks to the efforts of
the town’s three state House representatives.
The town had previously
assumed that 6.9 percent of the $112
million project would be reimbursed by the state government —roughly
$7.7 million — but Reps. Hector Arzeno, D-151; Rachel Khanna, D-149;
and Stephen Meskers, D-150, worked to get a 20 percent
reimbursement rate included in bonding
legislation, which passed as the legislative session ended on May 8.
Upping the reimbursement rate means the town will eventually
get about $22 million back from Hartford, or about $14.7 million more than
anticipated. Full
reimbursement is contingent on project completion, audits and other
approvals by the state, a process which generally takes years.
Khanna said bundling the reimbursement in the bonding
package was the best option for the town.
“We stepped in after seeing that the town was facing
two suboptimal choices — to forgo any state grant dollars or to start the grant
application process in June 2024 and risk delaying the construction schedule,”
she said in a statement. “We felt that for the students and for the community,
it’s imperative to keep this project on track.”
CMS was briefly
closed in 2022 after engineers found structural issues at the school
and new
cracks formed in April after a small earthquake shook the tri-state
area.
Arzeno, who is a member of the education committee, did much
of the lobbying among fellow representatives to up the town’s reimbursement
rate, according to Meskers.
Arzeno, Khanna and Meskers voted for the legislation in the
house, as did state Sen. Ryan Fazio when the bill reached the senate.
“I appreciate the advocacy of my colleagues in the Greenwich
delegation,” Fazio said in a statement. “The safety and wellbeing of our
students and faculty at Central are paramount, and getting Central rebuilt and
having state support for the town is vital.”
Fazio, a Republican, also introduced a
standalone bill to expedite grant funding for CMS at the beginning of
the session, but it did not advance through the legislative process.
Construction at CMS is slated to start in December, with
hopes of opening the new school in August 2026.
Why Bridgeport's bridge rebuild is taking decades more than Norwalk's — 'It's quite sickening'
BRIDGEPORT — Should Connecticut's largest city have a
serious case of bridge replacement envy?
State
officials are pledging to take a year to rebuild Norwalk's Fairfield Avenue
highway overpass, demolished after a fiery May 6 crash, at an
estimated cost of about $20 million. Meanwhile Bridgeport's multi-year slog to
install a new Congress Street drawbridge, out of service since the late 1990s,
has been dealt another setback and is stuck in limbo.
This week Bridgeport's economic development office confirmed
that the city's recent application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for
$22.1 million to help cover the costs of a new Congress Street Bridge was
rejected. In
a January briefing, economic development staff told City Council members "we
feel very, very competitive."
That $22.1 million is needed because when the city went out
to bid on the project last summer it used a $24 million price estimate that
dated back to before the global COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020.
Three years later interested
contractors instead submitted bids of $42.55 million, $48.04 million, $56.93
million and $57.63 million.
William Coleman, deputy economic development chief, said
this week that Bridgeport, which set aside $12 million and
got $12 million from the state in 2019 for the new bridge, would persist in
seeking grant dollars to supplement that $24 million total. He noted the city
has another application pending with the transportation department and should
hear back by early July.
The new Congress Street Bridge would reconnect downtown over
the Pequonnock River to the East Side. City Council President Aidee Nieves
represents that neighborhood and called the seeming inability to move
construction forward an "epic failure." Still, she was hesitant to
contrast it to the speed and aggressiveness applied to replacing Norwalk's
Fairfield Avenue overpass, noting the structures were lost under different
circumstances.
"That was a disaster," Nieves said of Norwalk.
"Congress Street was just neglect."
The latter span was closed and left in the upright position
in 1997 due to structural deterioration, then demolished in 2010 to make way
for a potential replacement. The Fairfield Avenue bridge over Interstate 95 was
compromised and torn down earlier this month because of a damaging vehicle
crash and blaze beneath it that shut down the highway for a few days.
But Bridgeport Councilman Jorge Cruz, who represents the
downtown, does not see a difference between the need for the two pieces of
infrastructure.
"The bridge in Norwalk serves the same purpose — it's a
connection, one side to the other," Cruz said. "It serves the same
purpose for the citizens."
In a 2010 press release marking
the start of demolition of the Congress Street span, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes,
said, "For too long the Congress Street Bridge has been an ugly reminder
of urban decay and the isolation of once vibrant neighborhoods."
Bridgeport's and Norwalk's respective fire headquarters
are also located at one end of the Congress Street and Fairfield Avenue
bridges. Besides the argument that a new Congress Street link over the
Pequonnock River would be more convenient and also help the economies of
downtown and the East Side, officials have over the years emphasized it
would improve emergency response times.
"It's quite sickening that's going to take a
year," Cruz continued of the Norwalk situation. "Congress Street,
we've been waiting thirty. I wish Bridgeport would receive the same
attention."
And City Councilwoman Maria Valle, also of the East
Side, believes had the federal and state governments wanted to similarly
prioritize the Congress Street bridge they could have.
"Our people have to go all around (other routes) to get
to downtown," she said.
But Joshua Morgan, a spokesperson for the state
transportation department, emphasized, "The Congress Street Bridge project
is being managed and administered by the City of Bridgeport. ... Regarding the
Fairfield Avenue Bridge in Norwalk, that structure is owned by the Connecticut
Department of Transportation."
Himes has been one of the most vocal proponents of replacing
the Congress Street structure. Asked for comment, his office said it was unable
to provide one given his schedule. In late 2022 he noted the
reconstruction had faced "very significant regulatory barriers."
Bridgeport officials decided it would be more cost-effective
to build a stationary crossing over the Pequonnock than to install a new
drawbridge. As
previously reported, that change required a lengthy federal and state
permitting process that took into account whether a moveable bridge
was still necessary to accommodate boat traffic along
the Pequonnock.
Jon Urquidi, Bridgeport's municipal engineer, noted how
agencies from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the fisheries branch of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the state Department of
Energy and Environmental Protection were involved. And, he added, the
Connecticut Department of Transportation is moving so quickly in Norwalk
because of "an emergency order" taking into account how the Fairfield
Avenue span "is an active bridge."
"So there really is no comparison" with the
long-dormant Congress Street Bridge, Urquidi said.
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, D-Bridgeport, whose district
is in the East Side, agreed that the sudden loss of the Norwalk span interrupts
"traffic and commerce" — it is a link to the busy Route 1
commercial corridor there — but noted there would be that similar
level of use were the Congress Street Bridge still in place in
Bridgeport.
Nieves said there has been a lack of urgency on the part of
Bridgeport officials over the years to get the Congress Street structure
done.
"I mean, I would love for this to be an emergency for
the City of Bridgeport," she said. "Bridgeport dragged its feet
on this too much. It's not been prioritized."
Rosario believes that ultimately the state may have to
increase its funding commitment beyond $12 million for the Congress Street
Bridge to finally move ahead.
"I have a feeling that burden is going to eventually
fall on the state, much to my dismay," he said. "That should be
something that should be done at the federal level."
New Ninth Square mixed-use project breaks ground in New Haven
City and state officials along with members of the
development team Friday morning broke ground on a new mixed-use, housing
development at the corner of State and Chapel streets in New Haven’s Historic
Ninth Square District.
The $56.4 million project, led by Boston-based Beacon
Communities, is an adaptive reuse with an eye toward historic preservation. It
will turn an underutilized parking lot on State Street and partially vacant
upper-floor spaces along Chapel Street into 76 studio, one-, and two-bedroom
apartments. Sixty of the units will be affordable to households with incomes at
or below 30%, 50%, or 60% of the area median income, the development team said.
The new property will also include 19,000 square feet of
ground-floor commercial retail space in the heart of New Haven, within walking
distance of local restaurants, retail stores, CT Transit bus routes, and the
New Haven State Street Train Station.
Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2025,
and will bring much-needed housing options to New Haven, where nearly 1,000
new or renovated apartments are expected to come online in 2024, with
thousands more having been developed in the past few years and as more are set
to open in the coming years.
Beacon Communities has worked on several senior, affordable
or historic renovations around the Northeast, including the Edith Johnson
Towers and Montgomery Place projects in New Haven, and the Montgomery Mills
historic restoration project in Windsor Locks.
DOT to hold information meeting on Groton bridge replacement
Groton ― The state Department of Transportation will hold a
virtual public information meeting at 7 p.m. Monday on the planned replacement
of the bridge carrying Groton Long Point Road over the Amtrak railroad.
“This project will address the existing structural
deficiencies and the substandard minimum vertical clearance of the bridge
traveling over Amtrak Railroad,” Project Manager Francisco T. Fadul said in a
statement. “We encourage the public to attend this meeting to share their
feedback with the CTDOT project team to incorporate into the design.”
The DOT said construction for the approximately $13.8
million project is expected to start in the fall of 2026, depending on
availability of funding, acquisition of rights of way and permits.
Registration is required for the Zoom meeting, and a
question and answer session will follow the presentation. More information on
how to access the meeting and comment is available at
https://portal.ct.gov/DOTGroton58-342.
This meeting also will be livestreamed on the CTDOT YouTube
channel, and a recording will be available after the meeting at
portal.ct.gov/ctdotVPIMarchive.
People can submit comments and questions, referencing State
Project No. 0058-0342, by May 27 to DOTProject0058-0342@ct.gov, (860) 594-2020;
or by contacting Project Manager Francisco T. Fadul at (860) 594-2078 or
Francisco.Fadul@ct.gov.