nothin State Street’s In For A Fix | New Haven Independent

State Street’s In For A Fix

IMG_0843.jpgA plan to redo East Rock’s ailing State Street Bridge has cleared a final hurdle.

At their full board meeting Monday, New Haven’s aldermen approved a plan to reconstruct the bridge using $7.8 million in federal funds. The bridge takes State Street over the Mill River.

This bridge is in serious condition and is in dire need to be replaced before any bridge failure occurs,” wrote City Engineer Dick Miller in a letter to the board requesting approval for the project.

Miller seized an opportunity this summer to bump the project higher on the state’s priority list. That opportunity arose when a higher-priority project, Hamden’s Waite Street bridge, was pulled at the request of the town’s mayor. Miller succeeded in convincing the South Central Regional Council of Governments, the state body that allocates the federal funds, to make New Haven’s project next in line. (Click here for a back story).

A total of $7,775,000 was awarded for the project. Since the bridge is owned by the city, aldermen had to give the mayor permission to sign an agreement with the state for the bridge’s replacement. The resolution was fast-tracked to unanimous approval Monday.

Construction is expected to start in the spring of 2009 and take about 18 months.

It’s exciting,” said East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar after the meeting. At the time of the Minneapolis bridge collapse in Aug 2007, the State Street Bridge was flagged as one of Connecticut’s worst bridges, he said.

Across the river in New Haven, other neighbors are also waiting for the state to conduct repairs to Quinnipiac Avenue.

Lemar emphasized that, contrary to what some have charged, East Rock did not whisk the money away from the Quinnipiac Avenue project: At the time the Hamden project fell through, East Rock’s project was ready to go, while the Quinnipiac Avenue project was not. The Q Ave project wasn’t ready because the State Department of Transportation was still securing necessary rights of way.

Ben Berkowitz, head of the Upper State Street Merchants Association, welcomed the badly needed repairs. The bridge lies under the I‑91 overpass, near the city skating rink, at the mouth of State Street’s busy strip of stores and restaurants. Berkowitz said he didn’t think businesses would be hurt too badly by the construction, because there are many access points to the commercial corridor.

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