After a decade-plus of planning, a plan to extend freight rail service to Waterfront Street — and clear the highway of trucks — was on the brink of reality. The state has suddenly shelved the project; Dick Miller wants answers.
On Thursday night, at a meeting of the Port Authority Commission, the city’s chief engineer got the chance to ask questions directly to a state official. But Miller (pictured) didn’t receive the information he was looking for.
In fact, New Haven found out that the waterfront rail project has been “shelved.”
Now Miller and the port commissioners plan to go to the top, to send a query directly to the state transportation commissioner.
Dick Miller assumed his post as city engineer more than 13 years ago. One of the first projects that he took on was the planning of improvements to Waterfront Street, a half-mile-long road that runs along the city’s east shore, accessing a number of the harbor’s shipping facilities. The street needs an overhaul to allow it to handle the daily traffic of heavily loaded trucks.
The area also needs rail improvements, including the construction of a number of spurs that would allow the waterfront businesses to unload freight directly from ships to railroad cars. More shipping by rail would mean that more polluting trucks could be taken off the roads.
Miller estimated that the project would cost $3.5 million. It could attract more businesses to New Haven, too, he said.
Finally, at the end of 2008, the design was ready. By March of this year, Miller said, the project had received all the appropriate approvals from the region and the state, which had indicated that the plan was ready to be advertised. The State Department of Transportation (DOT) was signaling its readiness to begin. There were detailed presentations to the New Haven Port Authority Commission, complete with maps and diagrams of the project, Miller said.
“And then boom! Silence,” Miller said. “That silence is troubling.”
At Thursday night’s meeting of the Port Authority commission, Miller got a chance to ask questions of John Dunham, a transportation supervising engineer for the DOT.
What’s the latest on the Waterfront project? Miller asked. “Where does that stand in the queue?”
“That’s been shelved at this time until there is adequate funding,” Dunham (at center in photo) replied.
When can we expect it to be taken off the shelf? Miller asked. He mentioned that a bridge project in Branford, scheduled to cost $60 million, was recently completed for $40 million. What happened to the “residual of those monies?” Miller asked.
“I don’t have an answer to that,” Dunham said. He said that he didn’t know where the Waterfront project stands on the “priority list.”
“Can you find out where it sits in the queue?” Miller said. “It was at one time a priority, It seems to have slipped down in the scheme of things.” The city has been working on it for ten years, Miller added.
“I think there’s an obligation on the part of the department [of transportation],” Miller said. “I would like to think we have the department’s support on this project.”
The project has received the approval of the South Central Regional Connecticut Council of Governments, Miller said. “How many times have we presented it up here as go, go go?”
The DOT said in March that the project was ready to be advertised, Miller said. Then it wasn’t advertised, and he heard from the state that it would be a good federal stimulus project. “Then it disappeared,” Miller said. He said that he has not been able to learn from the DOT what the current status of the project is.
“It could be a viable growth driver for that area,” he said. “To not get an answer from the DOT … is very very discouraging.”
“Everything flows through the harbor here for New England, or a large part of it,” Miller said.
If the state doesn’t take action on on the Waterfront Street improvement project, “it will die in the weeds of I‑95,” Miller predicted.
“I would suggest we draft a letter to the [Connecticut transportation] commissioner indicating that we have not gotten adequate information,” Miller said. The Port Authority Commission agreed to do so.
Dunham later said that he works in a construction supervising, and was therefore not in a position to comment on DOT administrative decisions on which projects will go forward.
After the meeting, Miller said that the Waterfront project has the potential to attract more shipping businesses to the area. The ability to unload freight directly onto railroad cars would be “much more economical,” Miller said, and create a lot of “flexibility” for waterfront enterprises.
TIGER Power
While the state seems to have shelved the project, the Port Authority Commission is looking toward the federal government for assistance.
The commission approved a budget amendment and a related proposal that would allow the Port Authority to hire Parson’s Brinkerhoff Inc. (PB), a consulting firm that will help the authority to apply for a federal grant for infrastructure improvements.
The commission voted to pay $20,000 to PB for assistance in applying for a TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grant.
The federal government’s $1.5 billion in TIGER funds is targeted at four areas, explained Judi Sheiffele (pictured), executive director of the Port Authority: highways, passenger rail, intermodal connections (boat to train, for example), and capital investment in ports. New Haven Port Authority projects fit in the last two of the these four areas, Sheiffele said.
Sheiffele said that PB is a good choice for the application because it is already helping the city with a TIGER application to fund the Route 34 platform. “There’s an economy of scale,” she said.
Sheiffele said that TIGER grants can include money for improvements to relevant businesses. She said that operations on Waterfront Street have communicated an interest in rail access as well as in electrical equipment for plugging in refrigerated shipping containers, which would allow the shipping of refrigerated foods.
After the meeting, Sheiffele said that she is not yet sure how much money the authority will apply for through a TIGER grant. “It could be close to $20 million,” she said.
TIGER grant applications are due on September 15, and the funds will be awarded in February of 2010.
Miller said that he couldn’t predict if TIGER funds would solve the Waterfront Street delays. Regardless of what happens with the federal funds, he said, “we still need the support of the state.
“We need to let them be accountable for what said they were going to do.”
Does anyone really care?
Jobs that will be lost? I've lived in New Haven all my life and have never met anyone that worked down by the docks. How much do they really contribute to New Haven's economy? Who really cares? And doesn't the northeast rail network svck? If you build it, will they really use it??