Gridlock near I-84

I don’t understand why the congestion that surrounds the I-84 entrance and exit on Park Street has gotten so much worse than it was before the reconstruction. But it absolutely has.

It’s ridiculous at many times of the day.

What’s happened is that there are more cars lined up for the left turn onto Trout Brook Drive, causing them to back up and block the entrance ramp for people trying to turn left onto the ramp from Park.

Because these folks can’t turn left, traffic is also backing up to the east and sometimes blocking Trout Brook Drive as well.

The lights seem to be the problem. They’re ill-timed, out of sync, almost random when a finely tuned machine is crucial.

It’s too hard to go east on Park, too hard to turn onto Park from Trout Brook, too hard to turn onto the highway entrance ramp if you’re heading west on Park and on and on and on.

I’m also sick of people taking right turns on red from the middle lane of the I-84 exit ramp as if there wasn’t another lane to their right where cars can legally turn right on red.

What’s most annoying of all is that I never see cops handing out tickets for all the stupid, illegal things drivers do there now. And I have yet to see any evidence that traffic engineers are watching how screwed up everything is.

Blue Back Square is opening soon. It’s long past time to fix this monstrously poor reconstruction or we’re going to have gridlock in every direction.

Speaking of that, let’s get upgrade the lights along Fern Street and Asylum Avenue, because more of us than ever are going to be trying to avoid going near the mess in the Center.

Truck ban on Avon Mountain

Other than tunneling through the mountain, I have no idea how they’ll ever make the road truly safe. But does it make sense to ban heavy, through trucks for a few months? It seems like such a gimmick.

“People, Place and Prosperity”

West Hartford Forum on Capital Region, Wed., April 25th

The Citizens Network, partnering with the Capital Region Partnership and CPTV, is holding six forums in towns across the region that focus on “People, Place and Prosperity.” West Hartford’s forum will be held at Saint Joseph College on Wednesday, April 25th.
21st century challenges like traffic congestion, affordable housing shortages, air and water pollution, sprawl and ”brain drain” don’t start and stop at the borders of any particular town. And they won’t be solved by each town acting in isolation. The challenges we face across Metro Hartford will be solved only if we tackle them together, across town lines. That’s why the Capital Region Partnership and the Citizens Network are out to make the most of Metro Hartford’s “people, prosperity and place.” Find out where we stand— and where we’re headed— if we don’t do more, together.

St. Joseph College, Wed. April 25, 2007, 7:00 – 8:30 PM 1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford, CT (Mercy Hall, Crystal Room) RSVP: kelly@peopleprosperityplace.org or call 983-7894.

Moderator: Duby McDowell, Media Consultant & Political Analyst, Duby McDowell Communications, with:
* Thomas Phillips, President & CEO, Capital Workforce Partners, on “people” *
Barry Feldman, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, University of Connecticut, on “place” * Fred Carstensen, Director, Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, on “prosperity”

For more information, go to http://www.peopleprosperityplace.org.

Of SUVs and parking woes at Whole Foods

One blogger believes that Blue Back Square is already tying up traffic, at least at the Whole Foods parking lot.

Of course, there probably wouldn’t be a Whole Foods there if it werent’ for Blue Back, but that’s another story.

The blogger’s right about all the SUVs, though. You’d think driving around town that they were giving SUVs away with all the people taking them out on errands. 

I-84 exit/entrance changes

While I commend everyone involved for trying to fix an increasing mess where we get off and on to I-84, the new solution isn’t much better.

The biggest trouble at the moment, which I’ve already seen a half dozen times, is that traffic going north on Park gets tied up at the light for Trout Brook, backing it up across both the exit and entrance ramps for the highway. That just compounds the troubles, of course, since then people can’t make turns, blocking stuff up further back, too.

I’m no traffic expert, God knows, but there has to be a better way there. Perhaps it’s just the timing of the lights that need adjusting.

In the long run, the focus should be on making the other exits to and from West Hartford easier to use so that more people will shift away from Exit 43 and go somewhere else.