Environmental Advisory Panel

Reviews I-84 Expansion Project

By Andrew Gorosko

The state Department of Transportation (DOT) has begun a study on the environmental effects of a planned widening of Interstate 84 between Route 8 in Waterbury and the New York State line, a construction project that is not expected to start until 2020 at the earliest.

Members of an advisory panel for the environmental impact study met October 22 in Southbury to discuss the work that would add one travel lane in each direction along the highway, which also is known as the Yankee Expressway. Federal, state, regional, and local officials comprise the 20-member advisory panel.

The project has long been in the general planning stages, but uncertainty about funding has resulted in the road expansion work being delayed. The work is intended to improve traffic flow and enhance public safety.

The highway widening would occur in Danbury, Bethel, Brookfield, Newtown, Southbury, Middlebury, and Waterbury. Besides adding travel lanes to the highway, the project would modify the interchanges along I-84 to bring them up to current standards.

The environmental study underway addresses a range of topics, including the existing roadway and nearby railroad systems, traffic flow, noise, air quality, fisheries, wildlife, endangered species, biological diversity, wetlands, floodplains, floodways, historical and archaeological resources, farmlands, general land uses, hazardous materials and contamination issues, surface water, groundwater, recreational land, open space areas, socioeconomic conditions, and scenic roads.

The I-84 road widening would largely occur in the highway’s median, which is generally turf. In areas where the existing median is narrow, the highway would be widened along its outer sides.

In places where the highway is currently two lanes wide in one direction, it would be expanded to three lanes. Similarly, in places where the road is now three lanes wide in one direction, it would be expanded to four lanes.

Newtown First Selectman Joe Borst urged that the DOT consider building “light rail” facilities on the highway’s median as an alternative to widening the roadway. Creating such light railroad facilities on the median would be a future-minded approach to transportation, he said.

Jonathan Chew, the executive director of the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials (HVCEO), which is the regional transportation planning agency, said the DOT is having the environmental study performed now that a “geometric feasibility” study for the project has been accomplished.

The environmental study has long been planned and is finally underway, he noted.

Mr Chew predicted that as time passes, serious traffic congestion problems will occur on I-84. Such situations will create public pressure on the DOT to get the road improvements accomplished, he said.

Considering the complexity of such a road expansion project, Mr Chew said he is glad that the environmental study has begun.

The environmental study is scheduled for completion by July 2011.

Advisory committee members learned on October 22 that at their next as-yet unscheduled meeting, a set of “lane configurations” would be presented to them depicting what physical changes the DOT expects to make along the 32-mile-long section of I-84. The project is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.