By Ken Valenti
WESTPORT–The Representative Town Meeting (RTM) voted last night to request that any state upgrade of the William F. Cribari Bridge add pedestrian and bike lanes – but continue to bar tractor-trailer trucks.
The vote was 20 to 1 with four members abstaining.
The panel declined, however, to oppose outright any plan to replace the 142-year-old span over the Saugatuck River in a deeply split vote.
“Any upgrade should at a minimum maintain or evoke the historic design of the current structure,” reads the adopted statement, known as a “sense of the meeting” resolution. “The finished structure should be wide enough to include pedestrian and bike lanes and a height restriction to ensure that it will not provide access for semi tractor trucks.”
The resolution seeks to ensure that the bridge is “restored, rehabilitated or replaced as soon as practicable.” But RTM member Kristin Schneeman proposed removing the word “replaced,” leaving restoration and rehabilitation as the only options. The RTM rejected that idea 10 to 12 with five abstentions.
Many residents want the existing bridge to preserve the span that carries Route 136 – Bridge Street – over the river. If the state builds a new bridge, some feared, it would have to be designed to handle large trucks.
“They will not build a new bridge that does not accommodate all forms of traffic,” she said.
Many in town want to preserve the historic swing bridge, including two original truss structures that once supported the bridge but now are ornamental.
Others argued that the town would be in a better negotiating position to influence the design of the final span if it did not limit the options.
“There have been great bridges that have replaced old bridges,” said RTM member Ross Burkhardt, D3.
The meeting continued discussion from a virtual meeting held Feb. 24 by RTM districts 1, 4 and nine, those most affected by any future changes to the bridge. It extended the RTM’s effort to agree on a community position to approach the DOT with a stronger front.
Replacing the bridge is the DOT’s preferred option for resolving structural and functional deficiencies. The agency has released an environmental assessment of replacement, restoration and rehabilitation options and has opened a public comment period that ends April 17. The DOT also has scheduled a public hearing on the bridge project for 6 p.m. March 19 in Town Hall, 110 Myrtle Ave.
Last night, RTM members also continued to discuss forming a committee to represent the Town even after the responsibility for establishing such a panel was left to First Selectman Kevin Christie.
Early in last night’s session, Christie said his focus was on urging residents to attend the DOT hearing and ensuring the town’s voice was heard.
“I encourage all of us Westporters to review the environmental assessment in advance of the meeting, and I also encourage the RTM to engage in the process,” Christie said. “That way, we’re all working off the same set of facts before deciding how the town should best engage going forward.”
Later in the meeting, RTM members Nancy Kail and Jennifer Johnson, both D9, disagreed that the RTM needed to leave the committee up to the First Selectman.
“I don’t believe that we need to wait until the 19th to start to talk about forming a committee of RTM members and, of course, many others,” Kail said.
“We can start tomorrow. We can start today,” Johnson said. “Our superpower is that we can create a committee.”
The discussion comes as community members pore over the environmental assessment. In one instance, some residents are concerned that the state’s evaluation of the bridge and alternative projects failed to properly consider the impact on the entire Bridge Street Historic District in the area studied, called an “area of potential effect” (APE). They point to a Sept. 21, 2020, letter from a DOT official stating that most of the historic district is outside the APR.
“They’re supposed to consider all these things and they didn’t,” said Morley Boyd of the Westport Preservation Alliance.
DOT spokesman Josh Morgan has not provided a response to the residents’ assessment.
Ken Valenti
A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.
I don’t mean to be dramatic or fateful by the Dept. of Transportation’s call of a meeting this month to disclose it’s plan for the Cribari Bridge but I can’t escape a feeling of foreboding. I know that the Department has been trampling over the rights of my many friends and relatives in this blissful New England town, because one does not call a meeting to admit his mistakes. He calls a meeting to announce his victorious conclusions. So I fully expect the spokesperson to announce that the Bridge will come down, to be replaced by a marvel of cold, impersonal, modern efficiency, with nary a word to be spoken abouut the property rights of the audience seated before him. It’s as if I hired a landscaper to produce a plan for my elegant, historic home on Bridge Street, and he called a meeting of my neighbors and relatives to announce that my home would be demolished to make room for a grander, roomier and more appropriate structure. In that scenario I know that I would only have one opportunity to object, and that if my courage failed me I would regret it for the rest of my life. This is what you will likely face at the forthcoming meeting,. Because I believe that the State does not own your bridge, either by a recorded deed or by Public Act 603 of 1961 which was only a functional and administrative reorganization of Connecticut’s highway system, and not a comprehensive property conveyance or a supersession of all local regulations .
Mr Rogovin, any connection to Theresa O’Rearden ?
https://view.earthchannel.com/PlayerController.aspx?&PGD=westportct&eID=344
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Westporter’s can post comments that will become part of the pubic record on the CTDOT project website: Be sure to submit comments at
— bit.ly/158-214Westport.
If planning to speak at the March 19 meeting, type your speech and submit it, too.
All comments will go on record and be part of Federal Highway Administration review.
(Social media and letters to the editor are important but not incorporated into the public record. )
To add your voice to a petition asking for federal oversight over the CTDOT Cribari Bridge Project to ensure that long term and cumulative effects are properly evaluated and incorporated into the studies required by the Advisory Council on Historic Properties follow this link
https://c.org/xM7ZPdyV82
And express your support for a thorough analysis and reasoned approach to the CTDOT Cribari Bridge Project