Drill, baby, drill!
No, we”™re not talking about gas prices. We”™re talking about Senate Bill 223, which could fuel a debate on whether to run a tunnel to Long Island and finance it via a public-private partnership.
Actually, that”™s not even the part that”™s got us excited ”“ more to the point, the Connecticut General Assembly”™s Commerce Committee wants a study on the feasibility of building a toll-only upper deck for Interstate 95 as a way to expand traffic capacity.
Even the nickel-and-diming Connecticut Business & Industry Association wants this study funded.
Around here, it”™s “all aboard” with rails, bus-ways and bike trails. But do what you want with moving locals from point A to point B ”“ the fact is Fairfield County is the front door to New England.
The traffic will only increase of people trying to get through here ”“ yes, it will, just check out the I-95 Coalition stats on the matter ”“ and you will have to expand existing routes or create new ones.
The Merritt Parkway? Off-limits. Interstate 84? Long stretches of it are underutilized as it is, the problems there are merely a few choke points at Danbury and parts north.
That leaves I-95, the albatross that a generation of urban planners from Greenwich to Boston slung around New England”™s neck over six decades ago.
Build a coastal highway close to where people live? Great idea. Allow zoners to approve buildings, rail lines and lord knows what else on top of that highway, making any expansion a Herculean proposition? Not so great.
If we had a dime for everyone who has said over the years that expanding I-95 is an engineering impossibility, we could raised enough money to have gotten it done by now.
Next time you drive the length of the roadway”™s 110-plus miles in Connecticut, look left, look right and repeat as necessary. You will find precious few pinch points where there is anything more than a minor engineering problem, including in Fairfield County.
Admittedly, those that exist are daunting: Stamford and Providence, R.I., where the highway is flanked by office buildings or rails; infamous S-turns in New Haven and Providence; largish bridges not easily lending themselves to a couple of extra lanes.
We like best the idea of expanding I-95”™s width rather than ratcheting up its height. But if it takes a public private partnership to do it, with a dedicated toll giving a private partner its own revenue stream, then we can only say one thing.
Build, baby, build!
