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

Jesse Leavenworth

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

Andy Blye

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'

Brian Lockhart

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

Hanna Snyder Gambini

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.