CT DOT Presents Route 80 Plans to North Branford Town Council

Since early summer, Route 80 in North Branford has been undergoing a transformation. At the end of May, the project started in dramatic fashion as the trees along Route 80 came down.

The tree cutting certainly sparked concerns among residents, including Abbie Walston’s blog post and Joseph Vita’s posts Route 80 Promises and Route 80 Promises– Part 2.

At the Nov. 20 North Branford Town Council meeting, representatives from the Connecticut Department of Transportation updated the Council on the project’s progress and addressed some public concerns.

Stacey Epps explained that the clearing is complete and the utility work is now underway with 90 percent of the overhead utility work done and 50 percent of the ground utilities finished. He also said the contractor will continue to excavate along Route 80 to work on the storm drainage.

The work on Great Hill Road and the new roadway for Route 139 are also underway and both should be open for the initial traffic shift, tentatively set for Dec. 4. In this first shift, Epps explained, traffic will be pushed to the northbound side of Route 80 while construction continues on the southbound side. The traffic will shift to the opposite side in the spring.

Church Street is also completed with temporary striping, as is the parking lot at the North Branford Congregational Church.

As far as landscaping, Epps said that stone was placed, covered with topsoil and seeded and plantings are complete. Town Engineer Kurt Weiss also pointed out that there will be sidewalks on both sides of Route 139 and along some areas of Route 80.

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Questions from the Council

Mayor Anthony Candelora: What is the stone coming down near Great Hill Road?
Epps: That’s a catch basin on the hill. There was a six- to 12-inch metal pipe and the white stone covers the pipe.

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Vin Caprio: Will the state do the upkeep on the plantings?
Jennifer Sweeney (DOT): There will be shrubs so they will grow in.

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Joseph Faughnan: How will the cemeteries be handled?
Epps: Most of the widening is on the north side of the road so they won’t be affected.
Sweeney: There will also be an ornamental fence there, too.

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Caprio: How close will the vehicles be from the ball field?
Epps: Roughly 100 feet.

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Candelora: There was some concern about the grade for trucks coming out of the fire station – has that been addressed?
Epps: We’ve taken measurements and it should work perfectly.

Questions and Concerns from Residents

Donna Pursley: It didn’t seem like topsoil was very thick and I know the soil needs to be 4-6 inches thick so we won’t just have dead grass in first heat wave.
Sweeney: What you see now is grass, but it will be intermittent shrubs, too. Our landscape architect did look at the project and the plants are guaranteed through first season.
Epps: They put down six inches of topsoil.

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Scott Small raised several concerns, including the replacement landscaping at the church after the cherry trees were removed and whether there would be crosswalks – particularly at the entrance of the church, noting he and other church representatives had attended the latest Police Commission meeting to raise the issue.

Small: Is this the plan to landscape our green. It’s not a wise idea to have our whole town green subject to this plan. We’d like to work with the DOT.  Then there are the monuments on the green. The DOT is not going to move the monuments, but now there’s a telephone pole here. Maybe we move them? If we do, is it [Public works director] Fran [Merola]’s job? We need a cohesive plan for our town green and we don’t have one. We established a communication and they went ahead and did what they thought was the best thing and it wasn’t. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to our green, it’s all of our green.

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Bob Gregan: The state has completely ignored our proposals. We had no answer, then heard they’d scatter a few trees on the green – some dinky little whips. It's not right for the church, not fair. With the exposure of the monuments, something has to be done to organize the green. We approached the state a long time ago. The parking lot doesn’t work, things could’ve been a heck of a lot better. Who is going to own that additional area? The town or church?
Sweeney: That’s not been decided yet.
Gregan: But that’s important because it affects who will maintain it. How are we going to address this?
Town Manager Bonnie Therrien: The DOT is following the correct right-of-ways.

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Dudley Harrison: North Street is going to have a problem. I’m hell-bent for a light and a crosswalk. You’ve messed up this town. We live on North Street and a lot of people are in and out of the library. A crosswalk ain’t going to amount to much, you need a light. This is our town, not the state’s. We met with the Police Commission the other night and hope they give us support and I hope the Town Council will give us some support. We’ve got to make the center of town, Route 80, safe.
Council member Rose Angeloni: The problem is it’s a state road so it’s not our decision.
Council member Mike Doody: You need a certain number of cars for a traffic light and we’re short on Caputo Road, even with the high school traffic, and short at West Pond Road. There’s no way North Street would generate that amount of traffic.