Allan Appel Photo
New Haven Land Trust Executive Director Chris Randall.
In about a year and a half, 18-wheelers could be off-ramping from I‑95 right through the Long Wharf Nature Preserve onto Long Wharf Drive, passing by the base of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The cost of eating up a third of an acre of nature preserve: $1, out of a $30 million plan.
It’s the latest phase of the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s (DOT) $350 million Interstate 95 makeover at the Q Bridge, due to finish up in 2016. The DOT last month informed the New Haven Land Trust of plans to move the Long Wharf northbound exit ramp to the entrance to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Long Wharf Drive and the on-ramp to a point about 200 feet north of the memorial.
Chris Randall, who runs the New Haven Land Trust, isn’t happy with the plan, and is looking into stopping it with legal action. Both Randall and City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said the proposal is not pedestrian-friendly, and will encroach on a quiet slice of nature.
ConnDOT
The plan.
The DOT’s plan is intended as a solution to the universally acknowledged problem of traffic jockeying and weaving around the current Long Wharf exits and entrances on the northbound side, as drivers choose between the highways and municipal roads that come together there in a small area. The situation is now further complicated by the traffic angling to make for the recently opened Route 34 “flyover.”
“By relocating these ramps we increase the decision making time frame [for drivers],” said DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick. Plans call for a traffic signal at the base of the ramp, and off-rampers would slowly merge with drivers who have taken the 90-degree turn off Sargent Drive beneath the underpass and onto Long Wharf Drive, he said.
“This design is superior in terms of safety,” Nursick added. He was referring not only to the ramps but to amenities such as a bump-out for buses in front of the veterans memorial that he said would make accessing the memorial and preserve more secure for school children and other visitors.
Randall at the memorial.
Local officials are not so sure.
In fact, the state’s solution has New Haven Land Trust’s Randall and City Plan Department chief Gilvarg upset over what they see as a potentially serious negative impact on a relatively quiet and culturally important harbor-side corner.
They’re wondering if there aren’t other alternatives. Meanwhile, they said, DOT is just plowing ahead.
Because of a clause in a 1994 land deal, the DOT will pay $1 to take back a third of an acre of the trust’s land to accommodate the tapering 60-foot off-ramp.
Randall doesn’t contest the state’s legal right. “We signed a deal with the devil,” he said as he led a reporter along the path of land to be eaten up by asphalt.
However, he said he’s upset at the incursion of traffic so close to preserve pedestrians. “That’ll almost put traffic right next to the people walking on the nature preserve,” he said.
“I’m more than a little disappointed,” Gilvarg said. “I understand the site is very difficult with highway and volume,” but she questioned whether the plan addressed what she called the quiet and natural qualities that the preserve and the memorial deserve.
Both Nursick and Gilvarg reprised the long history of proposed solutions. An initial proposal to put some of the roads underground was dropped. Likewise, a state alternative for a “ring road” incorporating the off-ramps and a Long Wharf Drive reconnected with the industrial area to the south was also dropped.
Gilvarg wondered why alternative solutions such as moving Long Wharf Drive closer to the highway as a kind of increased buffer have not been pursued.
Traffic at current temporary ramps heading north on Long Wharf Drive.
Asked about the city’s concerns, Nursick said, “We’re going down this road because the city changed its mind with the ring road, and the city put us in a precarious position. We had to scrap that and start from scratch to come up with a solution to the weave. We’re increasing safety for folks going to the Vietnam Memorial. A signalized intersection. No one speeding through. And no noise issues.”
Gilvarg was not satisfied, even on the bus bump-out amenity. “You can put a bus pull-off there, but nobody will feel safe.”
She said there had been similarly complex issues on the the other side of the highway with the businesses and their driveways that were amicably worked out.
“I don’t think they’ve [DOT staffers] responded to issues the city put before them. How many places on the Connecticut shoreline does a member of the public get [a chance] to get to the shoreline? Admittedly it’s not optimum because there’s a highway, but that says to me we should make getting to the shoreline the best experience possible, and I don’t see that happening here.”
“We think there needs to be a much fuller discussion on alternatives and impacts on this side just like we did on the other side,” she said.
Nursick said the DOT’s position is that the mandates for public community discussions on these matters has been fulfilled, and he wasn’t aware of any upcoming meetings.
“It’s all in the design phase now, with bids yet to go out,” he said. If the schedule is adhered to, construction could begin in the spring of 2012, he said.
Randall said the trust, which was briefed a month ago by DOT officials, is consulting with lawyers to see if it has legal recourse. The problem is “big time on the agenda” of the organization’s meeting regular meeting on June 13, he said.
fine by me really. Have you ever taken a walk through that "nature preserve"?; it's more like a wasteland.
I had some free time a few months back in mid-fall and decided to walk through it; it's in terrible health. Makes sense if you know the history - the only reason that land trust is there is because it was left over from the i-95 construction.
I'm all for land conservation; I consider myself to be environmentally friendly.
I still think that land trust was terribly executed.