The Connecticut Department of Transportation will begin roadwork at the Interstate 84 Exit 11 exchange on October 18.

At the October 6 Police Commission meeting, Newtown Chief of Police James Viadero said that the work will begin by moving utility lines and setting up the traffic patterns, and that there “won’t be much disruption at first.”

The project is estimated to cost $25 million and will take 1,000 days, or roughly 2½ years, to complete, said Viadero.

AM Rizzo Electrical Contractors of Danbury will be doing the utility work. Rizzo Electric handles industrial, commercial, and municipal electrical contracts throughout Connecticut and New York, according to its website.

The work will be major intersection improvements on Route 34 (Berkshire Road) at SR 490 (Wasserman Way), Route 34 (Berkshire Road) at Toddy Hill Road, and SR 490 (Wasserman Way) at the I-84 interchange 11 ramps.

The length of the proposed project area is 2,600 feet along Route 34, 3,700 feet along the I-84 ramps, 1,500 feet along Wasserman Way, and approximately 100 feet on Toddy Hill Road. A bridge replacement project on Toddy Hill Road is currently programmed for construction under the town’s state-funded bridge replacement project and is not part of these improvements.

According to documents online from the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the proposed improvements will address extensive congestion, improve traffic operations and safety by providing auxiliary turning lanes, improved geometry at intersections, and by constructing a slip ramp from Route 34 westbound to access the I-84 eastbound and westbound ramps.

Improvements include widening the roadway on Route 34 and Wasserman Way, adding turning lanes at the intersections, improving the sightlines at the Route 34 and Toddy Hill Road intersection by lowering the roadway profile, upgrading existing drainage, and constructing a retaining wall under the I-84 overpass to accommodate the proposed widening.

The off-ramp from I-84 at the Exit 11 interchange will be reconfigured to accommodate an additional turn lane and realigned to normalize the intersection with Wasserman Way. The I-84 east-bound ramp will be realigned slightly north to accommodate the proposed slip ramp from Route 34. Route 34 will be widened at the westerly project limit to accommodate a westbound bypass width shoulder for the high school driveway.

The existing commuter lot located on Wasserman Way will be partially reconstructed. Illumination will be upgraded on the I-84 ramps as part of this project.

Signals And Pedestrian Access

New traffic signals will replace the existing signals on Route 34 at Wasserman Way and on Wasserman Way at the I-84 ramp ending. A major upgrade to the traffic signal on Route 34 at Toddy Hill Road is also proposed.

Improvements to bicycle, pedestrian, and commuter accommodations will be incorporated where possible. Four-foot minimum shoulders will be included and five-foot shoulders may be included where possible. Sidewalks are proposed along the south side of Route 34 from the Newtown High School to Toddy Hill Road, and along Wasserman Way from the Route 34 intersection south to Oakview Road. Sidewalk is also proposed on Wasserman Way to the commuter lot.

The roadway improvement project has been in the planning stages since 1996. Planning for the current version of the project started in 2015, after it became clear that the state would not be widening the main line of I-84 between Waterbury and the New York State border, as had been earlier proposed.

Near Exit 11 during the morning and evening commuter rush periods, sections of Berkshire Road and Wasserman Way become congested because they are too narrow to handle the volume of traffic that they carry. Berkshire Road also is known as State Route 34. Wasserman Way is a state road, but it is not posted with route markers.

Last May, in connection with the planned Exit 11 improvement project, the town completed a $2.9-million construction project, which replaced an obsolete culvert crossing on Toddy Hill Road with a modern arch-style bridge, just south of Toddy Hill Road’s intersection with Berkshire Road. State funding covered a large majority of that project’s costs.

As part of the Exit 11 project, the DOT has acquired several houses situated on the east side of Berkshire Road, south of the Exit 11 ramps that cross above Berkshire Road. Those vacant houses were demolished to make way for Berkshire Road’s widening and the placement of a new on-ramp, which will allow motorists on westbound Berkshire Road to directly enter the existing combined Exit 11 on-ramp at a point before that on-ramp forks into individual on-ramps for eastbound and for westbound I-84.

Multiple attempts were made to reach the Department of Transportation for more information but a response was not received before deadline.

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Reporter Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.