The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
CHANGES AHEAD
Residents are troubled about Route 9 plan to remove traffic signals and add a pedestrian bridge, roundabout
MIDDLETOWN >> Nearly 120 people showed up for a public hearing Tuesday evening that allowed criticism on plans to remove a stop sign and traffic lights from the part of Route 9 that flows through the city and the construction of a pedestrian bridge, roundabout and other components that engineers say will lessen accidents and improve traffic flow downtown.
Many who sat in the Elks Club dining room on Maynard Street — nearly filled to capacity — expressed concerns about the proposal, including local officials, business owners, residents and others who say the modifications would exacerbate already fraught traveling conditions which worsen considerably during the peak morning and afternoon rush hours.
Presently motorists enter the highway where vehicles — often zipping by above the speed limit — create hazardous conditions that the DOT says are responsible for a record number of crashes At the signal lights both north and southbound, those unfamiliar with the Middletown traffic setup zoom by at high speed, never expecting to stop.
At the on-ramp of Route 17 onto Route 9 north, where there is the stop sign, the plan is to “replace the existing bridge immediately north of the stopcontrolled on-ramp to accommodate a full-length acceleration lane and re-
"Everything along deKoven is going to have a gorgeous view of an embankment, and they’re not going to see the river anymore." — Middletown Common Councilman Sebastian Giuliano
move the stop-controlled condition.”
“At this stop sign, over a three-year period, there have been 344 crashes and 71 injuries,” state Department of Transportation principal engineer William W. Britnell explained to those gathered. “It’s second on (the) list of locations throughout the state where we’re having higher-thanexpected crash rates. Of those, 95 percent are rearend collisions,” he added.
“For the second project to remove the lights from Route 9 northbound, the roadway will be largely untouched,” he said.
Resident after resident took the microphone to express their frustrations, make suggestions and voice their opposition.
Common Councilman Sebastian Giuliano took the microphone first, saying the proposal to elevate the southbound lanes of Route 9 “looks like it affects everything on the northern part of it, everything from Ferry Street, Green Street to almost Washington Street and as you go down to City Hall.”
He was sharply critical of the pedestrian bridge and other facets of the design. “Everything along deKoven is going to have a gorgeous view of an embankment, and they’re not going to see the river anymore,” Giuliano said.
The walking overpass that will connect Main Street to Harbor Park “to improve the visual and physical connection between downtown and the riverfront,” according to engineers, will include a platform on the east side that is intended to give “scenic views of the river not currently available.”
But residents say it will impede views of the river and be an ugly structure itself.
Giuliano said he wasn’t sure whether the DOT engineers and designers were aware of the city’s project — nearing completion — to decommission the River Road sewage treatment plant. “We’re spend millions of dollars to build a forced sewer main, a pump station to connect to the Mattabassett District so we can decommission our sewer plant to reconnect to the river.
“This cuts us off from the river,” he said emphatically.
“It’s not just being able to walk down to the riverfront, it’s seeing it . ... If anyone here has property on deKoven drive, you might want to sell it now,” he said as the audience applauded.
The roundabout that will be built in order to close the Harbor Drive on-ramp onto Route 9 north and improve traffic flow at the Route 17 interchange at Main Street Extension, Giuliano said, will cause unnecessary traffic downtown and aggravate drivers.
“You’re going to put people on Main Street who don’t intend to come to Main Street — they just need to get through it to get where they’re going and they’re just going to mess it up for people who do want to come to Main Street.”
Councilman Gerry Daley, chairman of the Middletown Economic Development Commission, spoke about removing the lights on Route 9, which he agreed are a “significant problem.”
“Everyone I talk to agrees. I know many people who have been hit. I know people who have been seriously injured stopped at those lights on Route 9, stopped in the evening rush hour and a car comes barreling down at 70 miles per hour not realizing there was a traffic light. I can tell you people that were seriously injured. This is why the DOT is trying to address this problem.”
Jenny Hawkins Lecce, past president of the Middletown Commission on the Arts and longtime commissioner, said she’s concerned about problems that the sounds of increased traffic and light will have on businesses and Wesleyan University’s Van Vleck Observatory.
“I’m worried about the acoustical impact of such large structures cutting through our downtown. I wonder about a backflow of pollution as well as sound and how it will impact our outside dining” and other places people frequent downtown. “I’m concerned about ambient light (if we are) elevating things up 17 and 20 feet high,” she added, referring to the raising of the highway.
“We have the university with the observatory and any kind of ambient light like that is going to have a huge impact on the ability for the observatory to function.
“A lot of money and attention is being spent to a portion of Route 9 and I feel that an extra burden is being put on Route 66, which, for residents here, is already a very clogged and troublesome and massively uncomfortable place to sit in a car — pretty much any day of the week.”
Britnell explained illustrations that showed sidewalk bumpouts — extended sidewalks that reach a few feet into the roadway at Washington Street, will make it safer for pedestrians trying to get across. “We’re hoping to extend these sidewalks at Main Street, which shortens up the pedestrian crossing, and by doing that, we’re able to shorten that signal timing.”
“That’s a big huge improvement in terms of that signal operation because what it does is give that time back to Main Street or Washington Street where we’ll see improvement despite additional traffic,” Britnell said.
The proposal eliminates all those left turns, he added. “Instead they will be made here (pointing to the projected slide) instead of at Washington Street in the southbound direction. Currently there is a right turn, there is an exit that you can make to get off at Washington that would also be eliminated under this proposal, so instead of making a right-hand turn here to get off, you’d either make it at Hartford Avenue or you make it down here at deKoven drive as well as Route 9 southbound rises up, hits the bridge, comes back down.
“The purpose of that bridge is to allow this lefthand turn manuever from Route 9 northbound into Washington Street so that will come in underneath the bridge. Handling it with a roundabout,” Britnell explained, as opposed to a traffic signal, is a more safer way of doing it. “We would have gates come down when trucks come by and they would stop traffic just like the signal would.”
One North End business owner who identified himself only as Rich said he’s lived in the North End his whole life. “This to me is another destruction of the North End. I live with people trying to get to Meriden, Wilimantic, Portland, Cobalt, whatever, going down Stack Street, High Street — this just exacerbates it more.”
“I can’t even go up to Main Street to go to lunch because of traffic. I grew up on Main Street, it’s just not the same,” he acknowledged. Referring to motorists passing on Route 9 through the city, he said, “They do have to go but there has got to be a different way that doesn’t include the door into Middletown and our city streets.”
Dimitri D’Alessandro, owner of Middletown Framing, grew up in the Miller/ Bridge Street area which has been cut off from the downtown and the North End for years and is only accessible from Portland Street and Route 9 southbound. He spoke after the presentation and following input from city workers, officials, residents and business owners.
“Considering the time and money it takes to have a presentation and public session, it might be more constructive to set up a website” as a better forum for people to voice their concerns, make comments or suggest alternatives.
Britnell said there will be another public session at the 30-percent design stage and encouraged people to fill out the comment form that was part of a packet on the night’s presentation.