throwaway_5863 t1_j63agar wrote
Reply to comment by iamsce in I-95 in CT ranks as most congested corridor in USA beating out LA; Merritt Parkway also makes top 10 by celticnutjob
Wouldn’t it effectively be the same here with more lanes? Induced demand?
BenVarone t1_j63n8rh wrote
You’re not wrong about induced demand, but neither is u/iamsce about how it’s both ways in LA (and Seattle). I think the big difference is that southern CT is basically a big suburb of NYC, and so all of the traffic is tied to people commuting. The flight to the suburbs during the pandemic (when there were also less people on the road) hasn’t helped.
I’m fortunate enough to WFH in Stamford, and the only time I really notice the congestion is when my wife and I visit her family in NJ & PA. When I lived in NYC and Philly, the traffic was constant and unavoidable.
Whaddaulookinat t1_j63w6fz wrote
> southern CT is basically a big suburb of NYC, and so all of the traffic is tied to people commuting.
The issue that it isn't, people assume it is and the infrastructure treats it as such instead of the third largest concentration of commerce in the US that's actually fairly self contained economically, socially, and certainly politically. Edit: numbers coming in have alluded that the god awful failure of i95 and the other network is that people that were using the train for intrastate travel haven't been because the MTA focused on CT-NYC commuters which for decades hasn't been the bulk of trip generation.
Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford is by it's own measure a massive economic centre with over 600k high paying jobs whereas only 40kish in FFC leave the state for employment (with about 25k inflow from NYS).
johnsonutah t1_j63ykko wrote
Yeah but the area around the train in Bridgeport isn’t economically thriving…the area around Stamford has some office buildings yes but otherwise you’d have to bring & ride a bike to get to the many other employers throughout the city (aka just drive instead), and idk enough about around the Norwalk station to comment.
We really need to do a better job building up / redeveloping around our stations
Whaddaulookinat t1_j640h6n wrote
> We really need to do a better job building up / redeveloping around our stations
100% in agreement. The fact there's any surface or structured parking right at the station is beyond a waste of tax rolls and economic development.
Norwalk has the Merritt 7 complex which has the main campus of Datto (huge homegrown corp) and to my knowledge still the day-to-day c suite offices of GE that will probably stay there for quite a while, if not indefinitely due to the failure of the Boston campus.
Bridgeport... ho boy yeah. There are a few issues there from no pedestrian path to the east side (which could expand the fabric of the CBD by a huge margin) and a serious lack of Class A office suites/office apartments. Interest in building new Class A has been tepid, largely because propriety buildings have "vacancy" (cough, Bridgeport Centre) but aren't really for rent which throws off many potential developers on first glance, as does the reputation that Bridgeport politics has/had/will have. That said, the housing market in the CBD is still white hot, with any rentals getting interest within weeks of coming online. There's too much parking, too many property owners that are depreciation harvesting, and too many poor uses like the Bob's strip mall. So I'd say the CBD is chugging along, not booming, but also not quite anemic.
W00DERS0N t1_j65jn62 wrote
Merritt7 needs more trains to it. There should be a flyover just past Sono to avoid train congestion.
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