Planners see trouble ahead for Larson’s Hartford tunnel plan

From Hartford Courant. Even as Congressman John Larson campaigns for “Big Dig” highway tunnels beneath Hartford, state transportation planners said Thursday they see trouble ahead for the vision — one of a handful of options now under study to ease congestion at the interchange of I-84 and I-91. “We have a lot of concerns with…

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From Hartford Courant.

Even as Congressman John Larson campaigns for “Big Dig” highway tunnels beneath Hartford, state transportation planners said Thursday they see trouble ahead for the vision — one of a handful of options now under study to ease congestion at the interchange of I-84 and I-91.

“We have a lot of concerns with this,” Nicholas Mandler, an engineer with TranSystems Corp. of Meriden, a consultant on the I-84 Hartford project, said. “With safety, with capacity, with expense … and it doesn’t serve that local traffic, everyone trying to get in and out of Hartford.”

In Larson’s plan, I-84 would be buried from Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood to East Hartford, near Rentschler Field and I-91, from Hartford’s Brainard Airport to the city’s North Meadows.

Mandler’s comments came during Thursday’s public advisory committee meeting on the I-84 Hartford project, which is part of planning for replacing a 2-mile, aging viaduct that slices through the city.

See the full story from the Hartford Courant online.

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