Connecticut Department of Transportation, Hartford, CT
Transforming a downtown highway corridor to reconnect Hartford
Goody Clancy’s Planning and Urban Design team is playing a lead role on this major infrastructure project that will transform the city of Hartford, Connecticut. The I-84 Hartford Project aims to re-envision and re-build a 2-mile stretch of elevated highway through the city that has reached the end of its useful life and been a barrier and blight on the city’s landscape for over 50 years. In 2010, Goody Clancy led an interdisciplinary team that created “The I-84 Viaduct Study,” which conceived and compared a range of strategies for replacing the highway. Since 2013 – and based on our earlier work – Goody Clancy is now providing transformational urban design, streetscape, and public space strategies that will reconnect the City and its neighborhoods, improve local streets, and create dynamic new public spaces for Hartford. Goody Clancy is the lead planning/urban design consultant on a large multi-disciplinary team working under federal guidelines for the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Selection of a preferred highway alternative is expected in late 2016/early 2017.
The I-84 Hartford Project includes:
- Reconnecting downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. Through new and improved local streets and economic development concepts, reuniting parts of the city divided for 50 years.
- Supporting TOD (transit-oriented development) and new public spaces. By reclaiming up to 25 acres of land adjacent to Union Station and Bushnell Park and 20 acres of land in Parkville/Frog Hollow.
- Realizing significant cost savings and service benefits. By realigning the Amtrak rail corridor to the west of I-84 to improve service and eliminate the need for an elevated highway viaduct.
- Engaging in extensive public outreach. Through Open Planning Studios and stakeholder meetings in order to receive continuous feedback on replacement alternatives and development/public space concepts.
IMPLEMENTATION
- The I-84 Hartford Project team continues to engage communities and stakeholders while exploring and testing a number of potential alternatives. Following selection of a preferred alternative, the team will undertake National and State Environmental Policy Act studies (NEPA and CEPA), followed by funding, design and construction estimated to occur before 2025.
- More information can be found at www.i84hartford.com
