Tom Weldon wants 44,200 frustrated commuters to know he feels their pain.
Weldon is a transportation engineer with the state Department of Transportation, and he’s been the state’s Johhny-on-the-spot for the $8.8 million bridge deck replacement happening on the Atwater Bridge over the Naugatuck River on Route 34.
That’s the bridge between Home Depot and St. Michael’s Church.
You know the one.
It’s the bridge where road work doubled the amount of time it took you to get to and from work last week. The bridge where the work isn’t going to be finished until November … of 2016.
“I understand the frustration. But I can say that myself and my staff have not turned a blind eye to the traffic issues here. Every day we are continuing to monitor the situation,” Weldon said.
Traffic has been an issue since the project started about a month ago — at least according to the motorists stuck in traffic who have been peppering the Valley Indy with questions on our Facebook page.
But things got really bad Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. That’s when the traffic pattern changed on the bridge and Jersey barriers went up.
At 6:45 a.m. Thursday, the Valley Indy asked Facebook readers if the traffic was really as bad as some were saying.
The short answer — OH MY LORD YES, according to more than 100 people, many of whom bashed the bridge project, including its planning and execution.
The bridge project was causing Route 34 gridlock in both directions — along with spillover backups on Route 8, Academy Hill Road, and Division Street, which motorists were using to get around the bridge mess.
The embed below shows the question posted last week. Click it or click here to read all the responses.
Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the state DOT, said that traffic delays are unavoidable when replacing a bridge deck. The worst traffic comes when changing traffic patterns — such as eliminating a lane, which was done last week.
People used to traffic going a certain way need time to adjust to the new pattern, Nursick said. The result — people get stuck in traffic.
Weldon said the issue was especially bad in Derby, where rush hour traffic was already a problem in the area of the Atwater Bridge before the construction project.
It wasn’t just people on Facebook complaining about traffic. Weldon said he met with Derby police officers who were concerned the gridlock was going to affect their ability to respond to calls.
Weldon has been at the site since the job started and had an eye-witness view of last week’s traffic. They started to tweak the traffic signals at the intersection of routes 34 and 115 to improve the situation.
The major issue last week, Weldon said, was the fact that the bridge’s east-bound lanes (that is, heading from Home Depot toward St. Michael’s Church) were reduced from three lanes to two lanes at the traffic light.
Motorists could make a right on red (to head toward New Haven) but weren’t doing so. All it takes is one car to wait, and gridlock was happening, Weldon said.
The DOT was changing the lights so that motorists would see green arrows, telling them, definitively, that they could proceed.
In addition, more signs were scheduled to go up in the area warning commuters about the potential for delays.
Part of Weldon’s job is to make sure the project doesn’t result in constant gridlock.
“Fifty percent of the battle is us providing proper signage and making sure that signals are working properly,” Weldon said. “The other 50 percent of the battle is the public paying attention to those signs and pavement markings, traffic lights and not being aggressive drivers.”
But, Weldon also said he has Murphy’s Law on his shoulder. The deck replacement is a big, complicated job. And there aren’t simple alternate routes around the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers.
More traffic jams will happen between now and November 2016.
The public also complained about a lack of communication regarding the project.
Information about the project was also hard to come by locally. The city deactivated a Twitter account City Hall was using last winter. The only city department using social media to communicate with the public is the Derby Office of Emergency Management.
State DOT officials pointed out they put out a press release in April, which was repackaged as a press release by state Rep. Linda Gentile, saying the bridge replacement was coming.
However, the DOT information isn’t an exercise is concise writing.
From the DOT press release:
“Lane closures will consist of alternating one-lane traffic between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.”
That led everybody and their brother to think the bridge deck replacement would happen between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.
You know, at night — a fact repeatedly brought up by Valley Indy readers.
Several DOT officials said some night work will be occurring — the bridge, in fact, could be completely closed up to six times at night — but the job is too big to do just at night.
“This is going to be a long job, three years in length,” said Patricia B. Stewart, an assistant to the DOT’s legislative program manager, in an email forwarded to the Valley Indy by the department’s communications staff. “The bridge deck is in terrible shape and we need to completely replace it. This is not the type of work that can be done in off-hours. It will be performed behind jersey barriers in stages. Two lanes in either direction will be maintained.
“It is suggested that people try to avoid the area if possible; delays are inevitable.”
