Flower Street fans, be sure to savor the next few days of safe passage. The Connecticut DOT informed their update email list that they intended to ignore and violate a year’s worth of legal precedent and intend to permanently close Hartford’s Flower Street. That’s the short version of what the tone deaf and directionally-challenged Connecticut Department of Transportation wants to do with neither a plan nor the funding for the legally required crossing in place at this time.

At last month’s Asylum Hill and Frog Hollow NRZ meetings,  DOT Principal Engineer Richard Armstrong presented some overpass concepts that were finally met with some satisfaction by residents. Previous meetings included circulating the same expensive and impractical designs, despite residents and other stakeholders repeatedly telling the State agency to be more creative. Nobody wants a $6 million bridge. Five  concepts were revealed during the most recent meetings: a switchback, skywalk, helix, and two different elevator possibilities. The Skywalk concept, likened to New York City’s High Line, was the most well-received. It would cost, by the CT DOT’s estimation, $4.62 to $6.24 million to build.

Luke's on top.
Artist rendition of the Skywalk concept, as viewed from the north.

It was generally agreed that these concepts showed a great deal more thought and innovation than the ones that had previously been shown, but they were still described as “preliminary concepts” Unfortunately unchanged was the DOT’s oft-repeated fallacy that an overpass was mandated by the legal decisions. While the DOT has consistently stated its unwillingness to modify the design of the CTFastrak to allow a surface crossing at Flower Street, institutional obstinance does not equal a legal mandate. It means that the simplest and least expensive option by far, a single bus lane at Flower Street, has been flung off the table by the agency’s heavy hand. The east-west temporary pedestrian walkway, seen below, was originally proposed as a suitable substitute for eliminating the north-south route of Flower Street. This notion was not deemed acceptable in the initial or reconsideration hearings.

Flower-to-Broad Street Path

But even with a better crop of overpass designs, there are so many unknowns.

The DOT, not unlike many other agencies and organizations, stumbled over financing. When asked again and again who will be paying for this structure, Armstrong said only, “we will find the funding.”

Can this funding be sourced over the weekend? Can the engineers erect a bridge in a few days’ time?

The answer to that is clear, yet it seems they plan to go ahead with this, despite the DOT’s own ruling the clearly states the street may not be closed until that bridge is created.

As per the May 20, 2013 order, Page 8, Section IV,

#2: “The Department of Transportation may not close the Flower Street at-grade rail crossing to pedestrian and bicycle traffic UNLESS (emphasis mine) it constructs a grade separated pedestrian/bicycle bridge over the crossing.”
#3: “Pedestrian and bicycle traffic over the Flower Street crossing should be maintained over the Flower Street crossing to the extent possible during construction of CTFastrak and the pedestrian/bicycle bridge. Pedestrian and bicycle traffic over the Flower Street crossing shall be maintained by a grade separated pedestrian/bicycle bridge upon the implementation of CTFastrak.”

Last week’s bulletin seems to show intent to directly violate this decision. Given stakeholders’ 2-0 record in the last two hearings, could the DOT be trying for a third round? Does anyone have time for that? Given past actions, or more accurately, lack thereof, stakeholders can’t reasonably look to the City of Hartford for support on this matter.