Until the hearing officer hands down her decision regarding what the Department of Transportation can do with Flower Street, it should remain open, yet a “road closed” and “stop” sign have appeared on either side of the train tracks on this roadway.
Nothing in the CTfastrak weekly newsletter indicates even temporary closures of Flower Street for the week through October 19, 2012.
UPDATE: The DOT finally responds. See comments for its perspective.
Michael Sanders
The resaon why there was nothing in the CTfastrak newsletter is that it had nothing to do with the project. Perhaps it had to do with the myriad of road closures for the Hartford Marathon on Saturday.
Kerri Provost
The stop sign was still out in the street on Sunday evening.
But since we’re speaking about the marathon, is there any explanation for the happenings on Broad Street that are reportedly costing $20,000: http://www.raisinghale.com/2012/10/15/dot-cuts-broad-st-busway-repaves-marathon-weeks/
Michael Sanders
If you’ve got an issue with the sign, talk to the City. They allowed the street closures and, I suspect, own the sign.
As far as the roadway re-paving, the bridge was narrowed to two lanes for construction. Had we not re-opened the bridge for the marathon we would have forced the organizers to re-route the whole race at which point you would have been criticizing the Department for disrupting the race. Is there any right answer?
Kerri Provost
Only reporting complaints being made by area residents, who, given the agency’s hardcore push to close off a street no matter what, can not be faulted for being aggravated by this project.
Chris
Is there any right answer? Yes; and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, You can always count on the DOT to do the right thing– after they’ve tried everything else.
Kidding aside, there does seem to be some Flower Street denial going on. The notice announcing the closure of Broad Street on the last weekend of September showed a circuitous Sigourney Street detour that ignored the much shorter/quicker route on Flower.
http://www.realhartford.org/2012/09/28/road-closure-planned-just-outside-of-downtown-for-this-weekend/
Tim
As of last night, October 15, there was a fairly large sign on northbound Broad Street just past the entrance to the State Armory that reads “Road Closed To Thru Traffic”. I noticed it as I drove from Capitol Ave to Garden Street and was happy to find that it wasn’t (yet) closed to thru traffic. Anyone have any idea if there is a plan to force northbound traffic onto I-84 and not allow people to access Farmington Avenue?
Kerri Provost
The mysterious stop signs on Flower have been removed. It was noted by a resident that the signs that appeared over the weekend were shiny and new-looking and were placed close to the tracks, not at the ends of the street. It was also noted that the signs were not in place during the marathon. Random signage?