STONINGTON – More than 250 Stonington residents turned up Thursday night at Stonington High School for a public information meeting with the Connecticut Department of Transportation over a proposed project to replace the Alpha Avenue Viaduct Bridge into the borough.
The project has become controversial after original plans to rehabilitate the bridge were changed to a complete replacement that could cost almost $50 million and will see local homeowners and businesses displaced.
Elissa Bass owns a home on North Main Street that backs on to the bridge and has been told by the Department of Transportation that they intend to take away a third of her property with a temporary easement for access to the future construction site.
“The entire setup of this meeting befuddles me,” said Bass. “People are looking at placards with maps and drawings and pictures on them with zero context or understanding. The DOT wants people to fill out a form with their comments and then all of that will be taken back to the office and recorded. I don’t know what that means. This is a meeting that impacts our community in a huge way, and for them to come in saying, nobody’s going to speak out loud after our presentation. Is about as anti-American as you can get.”
Bass was reacting to the the department’s initial decision to allow people to look at various documents and designs in a wider public setting in the school’s cafeteria, where residents could ask members of the DOT questions before the formal presentation in the school’s auditorium and then ask questions again afterwards but not during the presentation.
That format was later dropped after several complaints before the formal presentation.
Bass had also set up her own table with information and drawings showing what she called the DOT’s ‘secret plan.’
“People are just very interested in the fact that nobody knew about this until I found out about it and started telling people about it. So, that’s why the sign says the secret plan. And I also have information about what the DOT consultant’s report actually said, which is repair, not replace,” she said.
Derick Lessard, the division Chief of Bridges for Connecticut Department of Transportation, confirmed that account.
“So, we have a consultant that does a rehab study report for us. In that report, the recommendation was to rehab the structure. However, it also considers several other alternatives to look at, and replacement was one of them. And one of the big considerations that we do is consider lifecycle cost, which will consider the cost of rehabbing and replacing a bridge over time.”
Lessard admitted that rehabbing the bridge would cheaper than the nearly $50 million cost to replace the existing structure but said the rehab might last just 25 years before they’d be back again looking to replace the bridge.
The department’s roughly 35-minute presentation gave an overview of the project and the various considerations that DOT and its consultants had considered for the bridge project from minor repair and rehab of sections of the bridge to the current full replacement.
The presentation team said the reason for the newly revised design to replace the bridge was due to local officials asking for two-way traffic on the bridge during construction instead of alternating one-way traffic and that influenced the change in direction.
Michael Scheffer, Stonington Borough Warden was first to speak during the Q&A and called out the department for its claims about local officials.
“I am extremely disappointed with DOT and their lack of communications.” He said.
“I am disturbed by the lack of transparency for this project. I am currently disillusioned with the process and its results to date, given our original agreements with DOT and our public safety stakeholders, both the town police and our Borough fire department.”
Scheffer said he and the town’s First Selectman, Danielle Chesebrough had only, in the last few weeks, been made aware of the significant changes to the project overall when a homeowner, Elissa Bass, came to them with maps and a letter she had received from the DOT.
Lessard acknowledged they had jumped the gun somewhat when local officials had asked about alternatives to the project to assist with traffic flow over the current bridge — the only way in and out of the town.
“There was probably a lapse of communication in between when we initially were working with the town and borough up to now.” He said.
The town’s Fire Chief, Jeffrey Hoadley, also raised safety concerns about the lack of additional emergency access when the bridge was last overhauled in the 1990s.
“At the very end of this project, when we thought everything had gone so well, our emergency crossing at North Water Street disappeared on us in the middle of the night and nobody informed us that this was going to happen.” He said.
Hoadley said since that time he and town officials have repeatedly asked Amtrak to reopen the crossing, but they have refused to do so.
He said, whatever decision is made about the bridge project, having that crossing re-opened even for just emergency vehicles will make all the difference, especially if the project could take up to three years to complete.
The Q&A to follow lasted an hour and a half as residents shared their concerns and asked pointed questions about costs and impacts on homes and businesses.
Several residents identified themselves as retired or former engineers, pointing to gaps in the DOT’s plans especially over new height requirements of an additional four to five feet over the Amtrak rail lines, saying they made no sense and that Amtrak themselves hadn’t asked for them and that lesser height clearances existed elsewhere in the state at other much older bridges.
The audience appeared united in their opposition to plans for the replacement and for Amtrak to reopen the crossing at North Water Street.
Lessard closed the meeting saying, “DOT really appreciates you coming out. It was mentioned we don’t live here, and we rely on people who do to let us know what’s going on. So, rest assured we’re going back. We’re going to talk to the team and we’re going to go from there.”
He promised they would report back.
CT Examiner reached out to Amtrak about the closed level crossing at North Water Street but has not received answers to our questions.