The Oak Street Connector, officially known as the Richard C. Lee Highway (named after former New Haven mayor
Richard C. Lee), is a freeway section of
Route 34 that is located in
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. The freeway begins at the junction of
Interstate 95
Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...
and
Interstate 91
Interstate 91 (I-91) is an Interstate Highway in the New England region of the United States. It provides the primary north–south thoroughfare in the western part of the region. The Interstate generally follows the course of the Connec ...
and ends at Church Street.
Much of the connector has been closed to traffic as part of the first phase of the New Haven Downtown Crossing Project. By summer 2021, the road is expected to become a full surface street.
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]
History
As originally planned in 1957, the Connector was supposed to extend as a full expressway extending ten miles (16 km) westward from New Haven to a proposed interchange with Route 8 in the vicinity of the towns of Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
or Shelton, depending on the alignment selected for construction. The current connector section was completed in 1959.
The entire project was conceived with a dual purpose: urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
and traffic flow. The first goal was to completely clear this area of New Haven's downtown. The highway replaced Oak Street (formerly Morocco Street) which had been a poor area since the days when leather workers congregated along West Creek. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the area became home to many Jewish and Irish immigrants. The freeway was also meant to bring cars into the city and facilitate the east–west flow of traffic between New Haven and its growing western suburbs. Due to its limited completion, only the first goal can be said to have been fully achieved. Other plans for the highway to be extended into a larger expressway from New Haven to Peekskill, New York
Peekskill is a city in northwestern Westchester County, New York, United States, from New York City. Established as a village in 1816, it was incorporated as a city in 1940. It lies on a bay along the east side of the Hudson River, across from ...
were shelved in the mid-1970s, following successful challenges by highway opponents.
The right-of-way between South Frontage Road and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (originally North Frontage Road)Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
. A small portion of the planned freeway extension that was built in Orange during the 1980s is now used as a commuter parking lot.
Decommissioning
During Connecticut's budget crisis of 2002, the State of Connecticut sold off land acquired for numerous planned expressways throughout the state, including land set aside for extending the Oak Street Connector. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals purchased a portion of the Oak Street Connector right-of-way, and built a US$35 million research facility on it. The Pfizer deal ensured the Oak Street Connector could not be extended beyond its terminus at the Air Rights Parking Garage near Yale-New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Ha ...
.
After the completion of the Pfizer research facility in 2005, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. and several leaders of local civic groups began pushing the Connecticut Department of Transportation
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (often referred to as CTDOT and occasionally ConnDOT, or CDOT) is responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports and waterways in Connecticut. ...
(ConnDOT) to study removing the existing Oak Street Connector (re-routing traffic onto Legion Avenue and M.L.K. Jr. Boulevard in the process) and replacing it with buildings and developments.
The project would remove the portion of the Oak Street Connector west of South Orange Street, creating two large parcels of land divided by College Street on which buildings and developments could be built. Inbound traffic would be re-routed onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (aka North Frontage Road) while outbound traffic would be re-routed onto Legion Avenue (aka South Frontage Road). In addition, both roads would be rebuilt and widened to accommodate increased traffic, and furnished with landscaping and bicycle lanes. The road bed of the original highway would be reused as a driveway to and from the Air Rights Garage, allowing commuters to reach the Air Rights Garage while avoiding traffic on College and Church streets. The segment of the Oak Street Connector east of South Orange Street was retained as a freeway stub connecting the new frontage streets with the I-95/I-91 interchange, which itself was also rebuilt from 2011 to 2016.
The removal of this freeway stub would be part of a larger project called New Haven Downtown Crossing which seeks to reconnect New Haven's street grid which was originally disconnected by the construction of the connector.
ConnDOT and the City of New Haven began preparing the environmental impact statement for removing the Oak Street Connector in 2011, and in mid-2013 construction began on phase one of Downtown Crossing began which completed the aforementioned upgrades to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, as well as construction of 100 College Street. The Oak Street Connector west of South Orange Street officially closed to westbound traffic on July 14, 2014, with traffic re-routed onto the newly-rebuilt Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. A portion of the old roadbed remains in use as a driveway to and from the Air Rights Garage. Eastbound traffic was officially rerouted to Legion Avenue in 2018.
Exit list
References
External links
{{Portal, Connecticut
The history of Urban Renewal that led to the connector
CT 34 Expressway on nycroads.com
Animated image of before and after connector construction, Internet Archive
CT 34 (Greater New York Roads)
State highways in Connecticut
Transportation in New Haven, Connecticut
Freeways in the United States