Come on. Anyone who actually has to travel through the interchange now, knows that it makes sense to widen the lanes to 6, and not leave them at 4. Yet, the Merrit Parkway Conservancy group proposes to leave as much as it is, instead of conceding that traffic is the bigger problem.

During the quarterly meeting of the Merritt Parkway Advisory Committee at the Westport Police Department, DOT officials discussed their ideas with many of the parkway preservationists who, in federal court last year, successfully blocked the state’s plan to finish the interchange.

The new designs to connect both directions of the Merritt to Route 7 conflict less with the parkway’s historic nature, DOT officials said.

But Merritt Parkway Conservancy members have offered their own design and believe it would cost less and be less damaging to the parkway’s aesthetics.

“This alternative is much less invasive to the Merritt Parkway and it looks to me like it’s a lot cheaper,” conservancy board member Herbert Newman said about the nonprofit preservation group’s alternative design. “Are we all in agreement about that, or are there some questions?”

The DOT projects its own two proposals, as well as the conservancy’s design, would each cost $80 million to $100 million to complete, despite claims from conservancy members that their plan is $50 million cheaper than the state’s.

The DOT’s two ideas aim to solve one of the conservancy’s biggest complaints when the state wanted to begin work two years ago: the height of the new ramps over the parkway.

By realigning the ramps and shrinking the radius of interchange loops, the new ramps would be closer to grade level of the parkway and would not soar above the Merritt, as the DOT originally proposed.

Other aspects of the state’s plan that were challenged remained the same, including widening Main Avenue to six lanes, which requires demolishing the Main Avenue parkway bridge.

The conservancy’s plan would widen the interchange’s approach at Main Avenue only slightly, keeping the roadway at four lanes. It also proposes cloverleaf-style loops to complete the interchange.

Keeping the Main Avenue approach to four lanes does not meet the region’s growing traffic needs, said Sue Prosi, a transportation planner for the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

DOT officials also said they have concerns about the conservancy’s proposal.

“We have certain reservations about these plans, as I’m sure the Merritt Parkway Conservancy has reservations about ours,” said Thomas Harley, a DOT project manager.

The DOT’s proposal to lower the ramps is a good start, but the final idea still makes the Merritt look like a “superhighway,” Newman said.

“You’ve lowered the spaghetti a little bit, but it’s still spaghetti,” Newman said of the ramps.

I’m no fan of the CT DOT. THey have proven to be largely inept at maintaining our state and federal roads, solving traffic problems for the most part and managing construction projects. Yet every once in awhile they do something right, like the improved Merritt interchange in Trumbull. It may not look ideal, but the interchange works and eliminated the traffic bottlenecks that presented a safety issue for many years. The Sikorsky bridge is another project they finally got right.

The problem with the conservancy goals, is that they are against increasing capacity at the interchange. This is short sighted and wrong. The current state of the interchange is an eyesore. Its time for this project to move forward, whether the ramps are “spaghetti” or not. Some people think soaring ramps are a thing of beauty.

source: Advocate, DOT airs parkway interchange plan, By Mark Ginocchio, July 27, 2007