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DOT at it again - I-84 patch job

beerbeer

By beerbeer
in Greater Hartford

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Bill Mocarsky Hamlet

Bill Mocarsky

Posted
Posted

So there are two major issues here.

One of them is that the Aetna viaduct is nearing the end of it's useful life. DOT is proposing a $100 million band aid that may last for the next 10-20 years.

The other issue (that is becoming increasingly apparent) is that this wall separated large pieces of urban fabric. Planners now know this is a big obstacle.

Can we put 2 and 2 together?

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ctman987 Hamlet

ctman987

Posted
Posted

All concentration seems to be on highways outside of the capital city including I-95 in New Haven. Then theres widening I-95 in various areas between New Haven and Rhode Island.

I-84 in Hartford is a mess and needs to be fixed. The road has problems and also is gridlocked every day during rush hour. The DOT solution would be to widen the road to make more room but soon that bigger highway would become gridlocked.

The ultimate ultimate solution would be for Hartford to have a wonderful public transportation system so that numerous commuters could take public transporation to and from work and to shop. The second part would be to relocated I-84 either north or south as mentioned in the article or underground like the Big Dig. To bad its CT and we just build more highways to get people out of the area faster....

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Luca Brasi Hamlet

Luca Brasi

Posted
Posted

84 eastbound through downtown is horribly designed. There are four on/off merges in the relatively short span between Aetna and Artspace that cause traffic nightmares during rush hours. Too many people trying to merge on at Sigourney while others are trying to merge off at Capitol and Asylum in the same space. It happens again a few hundred feet later with people merging on from Capitol while people are trying to merge into the right lanes for 91 N. Once you pass this section, its usually clear sailing.

On another note, it is amazing to me that the 84 viaduct was designed with no thought whatsoever given to what would be happening at the street level. Years later, in some areas, it was paved over for parking. In other areas, it has been left as unused, overgrown nothingness.

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JimSawhill Hamlet

JimSawhill

Posted
Posted
All concentration seems to be on highways outside of the capital city including I-95 in New Haven. Then theres widening I-95 in various areas between New Haven and Rhode Island.

I-84 in Hartford is a mess and needs to be fixed. The road has problems and also is gridlocked every day during rush hour. The DOT solution would be to widen the road to make more room but soon that bigger highway would become gridlocked.

The ultimate ultimate solution would be for Hartford to have a wonderful public transportation system so that numerous commuters could take public transporation to and from work and to shop. The second part would be to relocated I-84 either north or south as mentioned in the article or underground like the Big Dig. To bad its CT and we just build more highways to get people out of the area faster....

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MadVlad Town

MadVlad

Posted
Posted
CTman987:

The Connecticut DOT when they retire moves to Florida and go to work for the Florida DOT. Here, they want to put a Toll BELTWAY to the east of here -- in an area where there is empty land. Some of the county commissioners are looking into rail transit - including rebuilding the track from Parrish to Durant - of course - that rail is going AWAY from Tampa. Here the bus line (HARTLine) is trying to help, but it is not enough.

I thougt highways in Connecticut was bad, but here it is as bad -- but we DON't have a TRAFFIC LIGHT on a LIMIT ACCESS HIGHWAY like CT does on RT 9. :)

JimS

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The Voice of Reason Town

The Voice of Reason

Posted
Posted

Bringing this to the top because we using the wrong thread to talk about this very important issue.

So....

Cut and cover. Its the oldest and cheapest way to bury transit.

The Pru is a great example of what could be done in Hartford.

I am not the biggest fan of the mall, and the overall site design at the pru, but If you look how the back bay street grid interacts with copley place and parts south, its 1000 times better than having a at grade or elevated highway there.

Also when thinking about spending money on projects like this, you can try and re-invent the wheel, but you can also look for practicle adaptations. DOT people might say we need to re build the viaduct from scratch at a cost of a billion dollars or whatever. Others might try and eliminate the highway through downtown by re routing traffic through 684 and 91 to East Hartford

I honestly might be inclined to agree with those people, but when we have to look at $$ the widening needed along 694,91, and 5, 15 hell there would be bridge widening and maybe even a new bridge. then we would be talking about a big dig type project.

dont get me wrong I think it would be worth it if we could remove 84 and 91 from downtown Hartford in one foul swoop and still maintain easy access and therefore our position in the world of transportation.

But the "easiest" solution is to just do cut and cover work.

2 big chunks of I-84 through downtown could be coverd immediately. as I stated in the other thread, some of the covers could be turned into logical parking garages much the same way that Minneapolis did.

Only part of the highway needs to be cut down between High Street and Broad street in order to deck over.

Also, the way things are set up, the cut and cover work could happen in stages. this would allow either work to be done quicker by having two crews working in 2 locations on the north bound lanes at the same time untill the N bound is all done, or if the project were strung out over a longer span, each section could be done in turn in order to keep the disruption to a small part of the city.

again choices are available depending on the city and the DOT needs.

I will likely re post that image I posted in the other thread later because its a 7 step process as I laid it out. also my image takes Bill Ms design into play and does not truely include the viaduct, so I might have to do some more drawing and thinking.

comments will of course be encouraged and welcome.

but cut and cover is totally the way to go!

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MichaelQReilly Whistle-Stop

MichaelQReilly

Posted
Posted
Bringing this to the top because we using the wrong thread to talk about this very important issue.

So....

Cut and cover. Its the oldest and cheapest way to bury transit.

The Pru is a great example of what could be done in Hartford.

I am not the biggest fan of the mall, and the overall site design at the pru, but If you look how the back bay street grid interacts with copley place and parts south, its 1000 times better than having a at grade or elevated highway there.

Also when thinking about spending money on projects like this, you can try and re-invent the wheel, but you can also look for practicle adaptations. DOT people might say we need to re build the viaduct from scratch at a cost of a billion dollars or whatever. Others might try and eliminate the highway through downtown by re routing traffic through 684 and 91 to East Hartford

I honestly might be inclined to agree with those people, but when we have to look at $$ the widening needed along 694,91, and 5, 15 hell there would be bridge widening and maybe even a new bridge. then we would be talking about a big dig type project.

dont get me wrong I think it would be worth it if we could remove 84 and 91 from downtown Hartford in one foul swoop and still maintain easy access and therefore our position in the world of transportation.

But the "easiest" solution is to just do cut and cover work.

2 big chunks of I-84 through downtown could be coverd immediately. as I stated in the other thread, some of the covers could be turned into logical parking garages much the same way that Minneapolis did.

Only part of the highway needs to be cut down between High Street and Broad street in order to deck over.

Also, the way things are set up, the cut and cover work could happen in stages. this would allow either work to be done quicker by having two crews working in 2 locations on the north bound lanes at the same time untill the N bound is all done, or if the project were strung out over a longer span, each section could be done in turn in order to keep the disruption to a small part of the city.

again choices are available depending on the city and the DOT needs.

I will likely re post that image I posted in the other thread later because its a 7 step process as I laid it out. also my image takes Bill Ms design into play and does not truely include the viaduct, so I might have to do some more drawing and thinking.

comments will of course be encouraged and welcome.

but cut and cover is totally the way to go!

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The Voice of Reason Town

The Voice of Reason

Posted
Posted
I think that for practical purposes, cut in cover is the way to go. Like you said, some parts of 84 can already be decked over. The only issue that I have with this strategy is that it keeps 84 on the Buckley Bridge. It's a real disgrace that a bridge like that was ever used for a highway in the first place. I would love to see it returned to the street grid. However, that only seems possible if we get rid of 84 through Hartford completely, which is extremely unlikely.
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Lowerdeck Burg

Lowerdeck

Posted
Posted

I'm guessing whenever I-84 goes underground, that the "Hartford tunnel" actually becomes a tunnel. The current east end of the tunnel right by the I-91 interchange would still be the eastern end, and not go all the way to East Hartford under the river.

Well, it could - but we'd need serious money to make that happen.

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drc72 Burg

drc72

Posted
Posted
I'm guessing whenever I-84 goes underground, that the "Hartford tunnel" actually becomes a tunnel. The current east end of the tunnel right by the I-91 interchange would still be the eastern end, and not go all the way to East Hartford under the river.

Well, it could - but we'd need serious money to make that happen.

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Bill Mocarsky Hamlet

Bill Mocarsky

Posted
Posted
I think that for practical purposes, cut in cover is the way to go. Like you said, some parts of 84 can already be decked over. The only issue that I have with this strategy is that it keeps 84 on the Buckley Bridge. It's a real disgrace that a bridge like that was ever used for a highway in the first place. I would love to see it returned to the street grid.
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The Voice of Reason Town

The Voice of Reason

Posted
Posted

Bill I completely agree with this concept except that it has another technology based problem that has come up in the last few years.

google maps, yahoo maps, tom tom etc etc etc will all tell a driver that if he needs to get from scranton to Boston he needs to drive throught 84N and not 84S

so the renaming meght work from a logical perspective, but will be defeated by technology.

I will say that if 84 S were to become 84

and 84N became a spur road ending near Aetna, and then starting up again in East Hartford, no mapping program in the world would send you through downtown Hartford unless you were actually heading there.

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