Date: Fri 16-May-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Church-Hill-Rd-Bridge

Full Text:

Church Hill Road Bridge Replacement On Hold

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

The railroad bridge over Church Hill Road, which has a prodigious appetite for

tractor-trailers, won't be replaced this year.

Timothy Gaffey, state Department of Transportation project manager, said on

Wednesday that a meeting was held last week at which the DOT decided to wait

until the bypass road through Fairfield Hills is completed before moving ahead

with a proposal to replace the railroad bridge.

The 12-foot, 7-inch high bridge is the site of innumerable accidents in which

trucks sheer off the tops of their trailers on the low-hanging bridge

superstructure.

In April 1996, Mr Gaffey and other DOT representatives held a public meeting

in Newtown on the state's plans to replace the bridge. They brought a

computer-generated photo of what the proposed $2.5 million bridge was expected

to look like and preliminary drawings showing construction plans. At the time,

Mr Gaffey estimated that bridge design would be completed in July of 1996, the

project would go out to bid in December 1996, and the construction would begin

in spring 1997.

Mr Gaffey said project engineer Tony Wamuo held a meeting last week with other

DOT staff and decided to take a "wait and see" position on whether the bypass

road, when completed, will solve the railroad bridge issue. He said that if

enough traffic is diverted from Route 25 to Exit 11 of I-84, it may solve the

problem of trailer trucks which attempt, unsuccessfully, to reach I-84 by way

of Church Hill Road to Exit 10.

"If there wasn't another east-west road through town, we'd have to do

something about the railroad bridge," Mr Gaffey said. "But now we will sit

back and assess the situation. It won't be done by this fall as had been

planned."

Mr Gaffey said the DOT is struggling with a lack of money to address many

critical highway and bridge reconstruction needs throughout the state.

Although 80 percent of the project was to be paid with federal funding, he

said Congress still has not considered reauthorization of the Intermodal

Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) which expires in September. The

$155 billion ISTEA legislation authorizes virtually all surface transportation

funding for the national highway system, which includes the interstate system

and other heavily traveled routes.

"If we can't get ISTEA funding for the project, it won't get done," Mr Gaffey

said. "The cost of this project is too much for a bridge that the state

doesn't even own."