Closing off part of Long Wharf Drive: “Safe park space” or “unpoliceable disaster?” This debate — pitting advocates of smoother car traffic against proponents of pedestrian-dominated public space — popped up at a public meeting where state transportation officials unveiled proposals for expanding Interstate 95 along Long Wharf.
City Point business owners and residents packed a back room of the Sage American Grill & Oyster Bar Thursday afternoon to hear state and city officials present options for the last remaining unplanned leg of the $1.4 billion harbor corridor improvement project: The stretch of I‑95 along Long Wharf betwen Canal Dock Road and Howard Avenue.
The state sees the project as a way to ease the bumper-to-bumper traffic that immobilizes I‑95 commuters near New Haven at rush hour each day. Widening I‑95 along the waterfront is the final part of that bigger plan.
The city has a second interest in this segment of the project. According to the city’s Comprehensive Plan, it’s a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to improve public access to one of the city’s most underutilized assets: The banks of the New Haven Harbor.
According to the plan, the city hopes to use the state highway project as a chance to transform the waterside Long Wharf park from a narrow, exhaust-ridden strip into a larger park that’s more accessible from downtown.
The Driver’s View
Temporary changes to the Long Wharf stretch of I‑95 could take place as early as 2009, when the state plans to temporarily shift Exit 46 on/off ramps west, according to Thomas Harley, manager of consultant design for Conn-DOT. The Howard Avenue Bridge, which will be raised higher but not widened, is scheduled to begin construction in late 2007.
The full Long Wharf expansion project won’t take place until the other big-time projects are complete. Construction on the Q‑Bridge is set to start in fall 2007, and construction on the ever-blocked-up I‑95/I‑91 interchange will begin to be rebuilt in fall 2008.
Both projects are inching towards an end date of roughly 2014. Harley warned that even with a zipping new 10-lane bridge and a free-flowing, spacious interchange, traffic will still get stopped up when it heads south on I‑95 along Long Wharf.
“Unfortunately, the day all this opens up, you’ll still have that stacking, until Long Wharf is complete,” said Harley.
The Long Wharf Plans
The rest of the Long Wharf/ Hill/ City Point project remains unformed. Antonio Margiotta, a civil engineer from consultants Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, Inc, bounced a few ideas off of the crowd Thursday.
Four separate drawings all included widening I‑95 from three to four lanes in each direction between Canal Dock Road and Howard Avenue; shifting off-ramps for Exit 46 westward to the Long Wharf Extension; and eating up corners of property occupied by the Register and Gateway Community College.
Several items of local interest remain to be hashed out.
The Park
One big question is whether to close part of Long Wharf Drive, which runs along the water past the New Haven info booth, and turn it into a cul-de-sac (see picture). The move would create greenspace to the west, but would close a much-used pipeline of traffic.
Would the waterside thoroughfare still be needed once I‑95 is widened? Margiotta said traffic studies have not been done yet. But he predicted closing part of Long Wharf Drive would cause “traffic backup” problems.
Beth McCabe, executive director of Schooner, Inc., liked the idea. The organization runs summer camps along the Long Wharf mud flats, and kids sometimes play games along the grassy waterfont park. She said the nearby Long Wharf Drive, now aroar with drag-racers, would be better off as “safe park space.”
Local architect Frank Chapman disagreed. The closure would create an “unpoliceable disaster!” Would you go out there ever, in the daytime?” With no traffic on the street, the area would be too isolated, dangerous, he said: How would a cop car reach you if you were attacked?
Helen Liveten, head of the steering committee in charge of the Long Wharf Preserve, sought to protect that wild patch of land from noise, exhaust, and drainage: Conn-DOT plans to place an on-ramp right next to the preserve, near the Long Wharf Extension.
“That’s a lot of traffic to come through the preserve,” said Liveten. However, she acknowledged the land near the highway does belong to the state, and is only being borrowed by park enthusiasts until it’s further developed.
The Ring Road
One of the city’s ideas is, as part of the state project, to create a new “ring road” by extending Brewery Street along the railyard, behind the existing Gateway Community College, to connect to the Long Wharf Extension.
City Plan Directory Karyn Gilvarg pitched the idea to the state as a way to deal with inevitable traffic congestion prompted by closing off Long Wharf Drive. Margiotta said he hadn’t yet seen a traffic study showing whether the new road would actually alleviate traffic back-up.
The new road would, however, help the city in another way, said Gilvarg. It would create the infrastructure to eventually develop the Long Wharf industrial area into something other than what it is now: Predominantly one-story buildings with long driveways and surface parking lots. New development would ideally include housing, she said.
Gilvarg said the ring road would be funded by the state if it became part of the project. It would cost $20 million: “We couldn’t pay that ourselves.”
The Footbridge
At the city’s request, all plans include a footbridge (pictured below in red) over I‑95, in line with the new Church Street South Extension bridge spanning the railway.
“Where are the pedestrians coming from?” asked Chris Ozyck, prompting a wave of chuckles. Were they going to “play froggy” dodging traffic on Sargeant Drive while making the connection between the two footbridges?
Good point, acknowledged Margiotta (pictured at top of this story, at right). That’s why we have these forums, he said. Planners had considered building a bridge over Sargeant Drive, so people didn’t have to cross it on foot, but they wanted to “avoid property impacts” on the nearby Sargeant Manufacturers and Yale medical center.
Harley said Conn-DOT was “absolutely” open to new ideas as to how to build the footbridge.
After Harley’s presentation for business owners at Sage, another was held in the evening for Hill residents. Conn-DOT plans to hold public forums on the project in the spring of 2007, said Harley.
The most important thing they can do is to preserve the bike path that currently runs from Long Wharf down through the preserve, around the corner, to Sound School, and then again along the water between City Point and the Kimberly Ave bridge into West Haven. Hundreds of people use it per day and losing it would be a major shortsight.