Paul Bass Photo
When a 65-foot-high “Flyover Bridge” opens Monday, many I‑95 drivers will take in sweeping harbor and downtown views. Tomi Beck will hold her breath.
Driving into downtown New Haven is about to become a breathtaking experience.
Or a terrifying one. If you’re scared of heights. Or bridges.
Then northbound Exit 47 will become a roller-coaster ride into space — and, eventually, onto the Route 34 Connector into the heart of the city.
Beck (pictured), for one, gets scared driving on high bridges.
She has been watching the new flyover bridge materialize — and feeling “a little afraid” at the thought of driving on it — from her perch mere feet away at her Just Like Mom’s Grilled Cheese truck parked on Long Wharf Drive. She takes Exit 47 to buy food for her truck from the Whalley Stop & Shop. She said she plans to continue taking the exit despite the anticipated fear, for the same reason she rides Ferris wheels.
“They frighten me a bit too,” she said. “But I won’t be controlled by a fear.”
The state Department of Transportation (DOT) plans to open the $94 million bridge to traffic by 6 a.m. Monday at the latest. A ribbon-cutting is planned for Sunday morning.
The bridge exit ramp replaces the current left-hand exit that causes its own kinds of terror or frustration: slow cars having to cut across high-speed traffic to exit. It’s part of DOT’s broader Q Bridge rebuilding project, designed by H.W. Lochner Inc. of Chicago and carried out by Massachusetts-based Walsh Construction. (The left-hand ramp will be closed all weekend starting Friday at 9 p.m.)
The new bridge ramp, three years in the making, starts at ground level in the far right lane by Long Wharf.
It climbs steadily above the rest of the highway, swooping above other ramps and arteries connected to the I‑95/I‑91 interchange. It soars 65 feet at its highest point, curving abruptly high above both directions of I‑95, then back down onto Route 34.
In all the one-lane bridge/ramp runs 1,800 feet of asphalt buttressed by red steel “twin tub girders” atop Brobdingnagian concrete pier columns. (See photo at the top of this story.)
The concrete parapets framing the bridge, on the other hand, stand a mere 42 inches high.
Meaning, at least on a stroll up the bridge Thursday, you could see unimpeded views of the harbor …
… the Maritime Center …
… and the overlapping arteries leading thousands of drivers toward the downtown skyline.
You could also imagine toppling over those parapets into mid-air in what suddenly seemed like swifter winds if, like this reporter, you happen to have that fear of bridges, known as “gephyrophobia.” By the way, that explains why the vistas in the three above photos are partially blocked; they were taken without looking down, camera raised in the air, from the safer middle of the road, rather than leaning over the parapets. (Read about gephyrophobia and one particularly intimidating Staten Island bridge here.)
Soaring spans that sweep in an arch “can be pretty scary” to people with gephyrophobia, said Michael Liebowitz, a Columbia University psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders. He has studied this one for years.
He said about 10 to 12 percent of the population has some form of “specific phobia,” like fear of storms or blood or spiders — or bridges. Bridge fear stems from two different phobias: a specific phobia of heights; or panic attacks triggered by a variety of situations.
Liebowitz offered suggestions for people scared to drive the flyover (beyond avoiding driving on it):
• “It would help to drive over it with somebody else in the car, even if you’re driving. People do better when there’s somebody else with them as a way to desensitize yourself a little bit.”
• “Exposure therapy.” A therapist goes on the road with you. “They wouldn’t start with a very high bridge. They get you comfortable and work your way up to the higher ones.”
• Take medication (for those subject to panic attacks).
Higher parapets would help those drivers feel safer, Liebowitz noted — but that would block the views so many other drivers enjoy.
Drivers like Luis Coto (pictured). Coto, who’s 17, usually drives past Exit 47 on his way home from work at McDonald’s in West Haven to his home on Quinnipiac Avenue. But he plans to ride onto the bridge when it opens.
“It’s really cool. It’s really interesting how it looks,” he said while looking at it during a stop at Long Wharf Drive’s Mexicali Mexican Food truck. “I’m really interested in architecture. I like the way everything fits together.”
The DOT still has work to do on the old ramp even after the ramp opens Monday, according to DOT Assistant Engineer Brian Mercure. The DOT expects to finish in October, a month ahead of schedule.
Mercure said he hadn’t heard about gephyrophobia before. “I’m an engineer. I build bridges. I’m up on top of bridges all the time,” he said.
Mercure said he’s excited about the new bridge (which Mayor John DeStefano, who once tried to sink I‑95 along Long Wharf, called “visually unfortunate”). The bridge isn’t named after anyone at this point, Mercure said. “We call it the Flyover Bridge — it flies over the whole interchange.”
The Evel Knievel Memorial Bridge, perhaps?
The crew putting in a last-minute joint on the bridge Thursday didn’t appear to suffer from gephyrophobia.
Melissa Bailey contributed reporting to this story.
Let's call it the DeStefano Bridge.
For the price of this flyover, we could have:
In addition to being ridiculously expensive and impossible for future generations to maintain, the DeStefano Bridge destroys the land value of dozens of acres of surrounding property.
The DeStefano Bridge also devalues, if not destroys, many of the hundreds of acres on and around Route 34 within Downtown, Wooster Square, Hill, Dwight and West River by making it impossible for future generations to reuse that land due to the risk of traffic backing up onto the flyover.
There is nothing to celebrate here - many high-ranking transportation officials have told me that, if they had known better, they never would have approved this.
Once again we can thank DOT and the city for another great addition to our neighborhoods. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/rt_63_trees/