Over in the Peoples Republic of Rowayton there’s a vocal movement afoot to do something, anything really, about the truck traffic on route 136. They contend, or at least the vocal villagers, of the tractor trailer semis that roar through in the morning and evening. Others conflate all semis, those 18 wheeler tractor trailer that only a Teamster would love, with other types of smaller trucks, but that is another issue for another day. It’s the semis that all can agree upon, they should not be traveling through Rowayton, GPS alternate routing algorithms be damned. So it was with surprise that I found when finally goeeting around to reading the Advocate today, that First Selctwoman Evonne Klein has said essentially don’t you dare close down exit 12, we don’t wan’t trucks going through Darien.
Ah, nothing like the smell of elitism early in the morning. Because this is the same Evonne Klein who happily signed on to the idea that there should be a truck ban on route 136, portions of which are in fact in Darien, from exit 12. And exit 12, is what the trucks are taking to get off the parking lot we affectionally think of as an expressway called I-95, and head down the meandering scenic route to get to the presumably the industry that thrives off MLK blvd. and allows Norwalk to keep its diversified city status.
From the Advocate:
The state Department of Transportation may close the Interstate 95 southbound entrance ramp at Exit 12 next year as a safety precaution during construction of speed change lanes, agency officials said last week.
The DOT approached town officials last month about the idea, part of a project to lengthen entrance and exit ramps and reduce bottlenecks on I-95.
The southbound entrance ramp at Tokeneke Road is too short and could pose a greater danger to motorists once construction begins because workers will use the 8-foot shoulder to build the longer lanes, DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said.
“We would be closing the ramp mainly as a safety concern,” Nursick said. “We are also looking at other options. We have not set anything yet.”
Darien First Selectwoman Evonne Klein and other town officials have objected to the closure, saying it would divert traffic into downtown Darien.
“We’ve said no,” Klein said. “We told them we can’t have that truck traffic in downtown Darien.”
During construction, the state would set up detours directing motorists to the Exit 10 entrance ramp, Nursick said.
About 150,000 motorists a day pass Exit 12, according to DOT traffic counts.
The department hopes to have the final designs for speed change lanes at Exits 11, 12 and 13 in the next month, Nursick said. Construction could start in April.
The funny thing about this is that one of the SWRPA recommendations to improve traffic congestion, which turns out to be one of those best practices of highway traffic flow design, is to reduce the number of exits on a highway. That keeps the local traffic, entering and exiting, from slowing the through traffic.
If the southbound exit 12 entrance is closed, it would seem that the incentive for MLK originating trucks to pass through Rowayton to get to exit 2 would go away. While it’s possible that trucks may persist and attempt exit 10 as an entrance, the sheer amount of traffic lights, traffic stoppage, not to mention the railroad bridgework construction would prevent that from happening. Or they might get a few trucks stuck under the bridge.
source: Advocate I-95 ramp in Darien may close for work, By Mark Ginocchio, July 30 2007
