The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
CONGESTED COORIDORS
Stretches of I-95, Merritt Parkway rank in country’s top 10 for worst traffic
Late on a recent workday morning, John Tavlarios was getting gas at the service plaza between exits 9 and 10 on Interstate 95 heading south.
Traffic was light at that time of day, but the Darien resident said he knows the pain of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the southbound highway.
“The reality is it’s dead time,” Tavlarios said. “So you try not to get aggravated, but it’s just the reality.”
A report from INRIX, a transportation data company, has placed the stretch of I-95 South between the Sherwood Island Connector in Westport and Indian Field Road in Greenwich at the top of a list of the 25 most congested corridors in the United States.
On average, drivers on the 30mile route through Stamford lost 34.5 minutes per day sitting in traffic during the 8 a.m. rush hour, according to INRIX’s Global Traffic Scorecard for 2022.
That would add up to 138 hours for a driver who traveled through the corridor for 240 work days last year.
The same stretch but in the northbound direction came in third place on the list. Drivers lost an average of 29.6 minutes per day during afternoon rush hour at 4 p.m.
Ranked in between the two I-95 routes, a portion of Interstate 5 in Los Angeles took second place.
Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway also cracked the top 10 list.
The section of Route 15 North between North Street in Greenwich and Allen Raymond Lane in Westport earned the No. 7 spot, with commuters losing 19.5 minutes per day on average during afternoon rush hour.
Following in eighth place was the part of Route 15 South between Wilton Road in Westport and Stanwich Road in Greenwich — where, on average, drivers lost 18.3 minutes a day during peak morning traffic.
On a separate list within the report, Stamford was ranked the No. 13 most congested urban area in the United States, with delays almost at pre-pandemic levels. Portland, Oregon, was a slot above Stamford, while Dallas, Texas, was a step behind.
Jim Cameron, the founder of the Commuter Action Group and a former Hearst Connecticut Media columnist, said the rankings were unsurprising.
“It kind of confirms what the locals have known for a long time,” Cameron said. “And I don’t see it necessarily getting any better. I think, if anything, the traffic situation has gotten worse since the (COVID-19) pandemic. Initially, when people either wanted or were told they had to go back to the office, they felt safer on the highways than maybe on the train.”
Metro-North Railroad ridership is at 65 to 70 percent of prepandemic levels, according to a January press release from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That is up from the early months of the pandemic, when ridership fell 95 percent.
Cameron, a former member of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he is a proponent of traveling by rail, which allows commuters to avoid high gas prices, bumper-to-bumper traffic and, during bad weather, dangerous driving conditions.
“I just don’t understand why people put up with, tolerate, endure those kinds of conditions, even if it’s just one or two days a week, instead of taking the train,” Cameron said. “And I’m not doing any commercials here for Metro-North, but the train is clearly faster. I think in many cases, it’s safer.”
Tavlarios, the Darien resident, said when he has a work meeting in New York City, he usually opts to take the train.
“Because I just can’t risk the unknown,” he said. “Many times what I’ll do is I’ll take a look at Waze and I’ll see what (the app is) saying at that given time, and if it says something like an hour and 15 minutes, then I’ll say, ‘You know what, I’m not going to risk it.’”
The state Department of Transportation is conducting a study of I-95 in Stamford with the support of a $1 million federal grant. One of the goals of the study is to find ways to reduce congestion between Exits 7 and 9, where 736 crashes happened between 2018 and 2020.
“I-95 in Stamford is one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the state and carries approximately 120,000 vehicles per day into, out of, and through the city,” according to a website for the study. “Interchanges 7 and 8 both provide access to downtown and their ramps carry high volumes onto and off of the highway.”
Cameron said two options for addressing traffic on I-95 should be ruled out: adding another lane to the highway — which experts say relieves congestion just temporarily — and limiting truck traffic.
“Those trucks are not empty. They’re not driving up and down the highway just to infuriate us,” Cameron said. “They’re literally high-occupancy vehicles stuffed with the kind of stuff that we want to buy . ... Trucks are not causing these problems. It’s single-occupancy vehicles that are causing these traffic conditions.”