Traffic Snarls On Cue

Cars slowed to a crawl Friday morning on I‑95, illustrating Sen. Dick Blumenthal’s point — that a gridlock in Washington could lead to more gridlock on state highways.

Blumenthal made the remarks in a press conference on Long Wharf Friday just three weeks before a key deadline for reauthorizing a federal highway bill. The U.S. Senate and House have both passed bills that would release funding for transit and highways, but they remain at a deadlock over a compromise bill that both chambers would agree to.

Some $522 million for Connecticut highway projects — including $30 million for a next phase of the I‑95/Q Bridge project along Long Wharf — stands ​“in peril” if the deadline passes without an agreement, Blumenthal warned from a highwayside podium.

The senator gestured to nearby I‑95, where a traffic jam had appeared, as if on cue.

“What we’re seeing on our roads,” he said, may only get worse due to ​“gridlock in Washington.”

“We need half a billion dollars for this project and others like it in the state,” Blumenthal said. If Congress doesn’t reauthorize the funding by June 30, he said, ​“this project will come to a grinding halt” — or uncertainty may delay the project and make it more expensive.

The $2 billion project to redo the Pearl Harbor Memorial ​“Q” Bridge would not ​“come to a screeching halt at the end of the month,” assured state Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick in a later interview. But he said the next phase could be delayed.

The $30 million next phase would tackle the I‑95 corridor as it approaches the Q Bridge near Long Wharf.

The project calls for adding an extra lane to northbound I‑95 to alleviate what’s called a ​“weave pattern,” according to DOT’s Nursick. A ​“weave pattern” is when cars have to change lanes to get to their destination — in this case, to get to a left exit for I‑91 or to move to the right for I‑95 northbound or the new flyover for Route 34.

As part of a revised plan that took into account the city’s concerns about preserving the Long Wharf Preserve, the state now plans to add a lane on northbound I‑95 from Ella Grasso Boulevard to the Route 34 flyover, Nursick said. That would give drivers more space to get into the right lane further back, so they don’t have to switch at the last minute, causing traffic to slow. As part of the $30 million project, the state would also reconstruct a wall along the edge of the highway, add parking to Long Wharf, and widen the small I‑95 bridge as it passes over the Long Wharf Extension, Nursick said.

The state plans to go out to bid at the end of August for that phase of the project.

“If we don’t have a federal transportation bill at that point, we’d have reservations about putting it to bid,” Nursick said. If there’s no bill, he said, that ​“would potentially jeopardize this project.”

If the project doesn’t get done, that would mean more traffic jams like the one on display Friday, Blumenthal argued.

The two-year Senate bill would also fund the redo of the Arrigoni Bridge in Middletown; the I‑84 viaduct in Hartford; the Moses Wheeler Bridge in Stratford; and the ​“Mixmaster” interchange between Route 8 and I‑84 in Waterbury, Blumenthal said.

In total, that adds up to nearly 24,000 Connecticut jobs, Blumenthal said. He didn’t have an estimate for the number of jobs created by the $30 million New Haven project.

“Jobs, jobs, jobs — that’s what’s at stake,” Blumenthal said.

Labor joined management Friday to amplify that message.

“We need this to pass,” said Mike ​“The Hornet” Nahornick, a 54-year-old member of Local 478 of the Operating Engineers.

“If the money’s not there, we don’t work,” he said.

Connecticut lost 1,300 construction jobs from April 2011 to April 2012, said Donald Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association, which represents contractors.

Shubert said the big problem is Congress’ failure to pass a long-term federal highway bill. The bill used to be authorized for six years at a time. Then the last authorization expired on Sept. 30, 2009. Instead of passing a new bill, Congress extended the old one nine times, most recently until June 30.

“Short-term funding extensions put us in a very difficult position,” agreed DOT’s Nursick. ​“It’s very hard to plan what projects you are going to be able to move forward on when you really don’t know” how much money will be available.

Mike Piscitelli, the city’s deputy economic development administrator, agreed. The instability in Washington makes it ​“amazingly difficult” to plan for the kind of ​“large-scale projects that are game-changers for economic development.”