“The ABCs of Newtown” is a series tying each letter of the alphabet to something in Newtown. This week we continue with a look at the eight-plus miles of interstate roadway that bisects Newtown.

By the 1950s, Connecticut’s commuters were beginning to feel the challenge of increasing traffic demands. Most of the state’s inland traffic utilized Route 6, described by the Office of the State Historian as “an old and overburdened road that stretched across the country from California to the tip of Cape Cod and passed through the middle of Hartford.”

Talks to replace Route 6 began in the late 1940s. In December 1944, Connecticut proposed three interstate routes, roughly where I-84, I-91 and I-95 are today.

Connecticut hosts 97.9 miles of I-84. Newtown carries just over eight miles of the east-west traffic, between its town lines with Brookfield and Southbury. The town has three access locations: Exit 9 in Hawleyville, Exit 10 in Newtown, and Exit 11 in Sandy Hook.

A local highway arrived in Newtown in 1949, when the first section of a highway meant to replace Route 6 was opened between this town and Southbury. The four-lane section of US 6/202 bypassed Church Hill Road and Glen Road. That was the predecessor of I-84.

A second section that extended the road to Waterbury opened in 1956.

Further action was not taken until later that year, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act into law. The new legislature promoted and funded the construction of a new nationwide interstate system.

Then-Connecticut Governor Abraham Ribicoff called building the new interstate system a “top priority,” and construction began in October 1958.

The 15-mile section of I-84 from Danbury to Sandy Hook opened on December 16, 1961, with ceremonies done on both ends of the roadway. It was the first segment of I-84 to open in the state.

Three additional segments of the road, by then referred to as I-84, were opened over the next three days, with I-84 reaching Southington on December 19, 1961.

By 1967 the two-lane sections through Newtown were enlarged to four lanes — two in each direction — and the highway was made fully limited access.

During the 1970s the state conducted public hearings to improve I-84 in this area. Upgrades, repairs and renovations, maintenance, and other work has always been part of the roadway’s make-up.

In the mid-1970s, from the New York-Connecticut border in Danbury east to Exit 15 in Southbury, the original section of I-84 was reconstructed to conform to Interstate standards.

The Rochambeau Bridge, which carries traffic over the Lake Zoar section of the Housatonic River and the line between Newtown and Southbury, has been under a complete rehabilitation since mid-June 2020. The $52 million project is expected to continue through December 2023.

In Sandy Hook, a realignment of the Exit 11 ramps and vicinity began in October 2021. The $25 million project will eventually improve the intersections on Berkshire Road (Route 34) at Wasserman Way (Route 490), Berkshire Road at Toddy Hill Road, and Wasserman Way at the Exit 11 interchange ramps.

That project was given a 2½ year timeline.

Did You Know…

*The 62-mile section of I-84 between the New York state line to the Connecticut River is called the Yankee Expressway, following Special Act 166 of the 1961 Special Assembly.

*Before the Town landfill was built in 1971, multiple locations in town served as unofficial dumping grounds. Garbage that for many years had been left at a Berkshire Road location was moved by the state in 1971 and used for fill in the construction for the widening of I-84.

*CT State Police in June 1990 arrested a 24-year-old man from Windsor after he was clocked by a state police airplane going 139 mph on a motorcycle near Exit 10. The driver was fined $150 plus court fees ($259 total) and had his license suspended for 30 days after his court date in July.

*The two bridges that carry traffic over Center Street in Sandy Hook, just west of the Rochambeau bridges, were replaced in 2014-15 due to deterioration. Installed in 1977 and 1978, the bridges typically are designed to last for 75 years of traffic service.

The $6 million project did not include the installation of sound barriers along the roadway, which had been requested by Town officials and residents of the nearby Riverside neighborhood for at least 15 years. CT DOT reportedly told residents there was no funding available for the barriers. Landscaping — various size evergreen trees and shrubs — was installed instead.

*Governor Ned Malloy’s administration in 2014 quietly dropped plans to add another lane to I-84 from the New York border to Waterbury. The proposed expansion, which had been in the works since 2005, would have cost $3 to $4 billion.

*A rest area was again proposed near Exit 11 about 15 years ago, but dropped in 2007 due to its proximity to the town’s aquifer, the source of two public water supplies and thousands of individual domestic water wells. The facility under consideration would have been built in the median between the highway’s eastbound and westbound lanes, in the area lying west of the Exit 11 interchange. The location also would have conflicted with the redesigned Exit 11 interchange discussed for decades and currently under construction.

*A section of Al’s Trail — the 10.7-mile long trail that connects Upper Paugussett State Forest to Deep Brook Greenway — actually passes under the interstate. While beginning his plans for the hiking path, namesake Al Goodman worked around the obstacle of the interstate, which otherwise would have cut the trail into two disconnected halves in Sandy Hook. Goodman discovered safe passage under the eastbound and westbound overpasses near the Pootatuck River where an old road and culvert spanned the river.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.