An accident caused by an SUV turning onto Route 7 from a side street caused a tanker-truck to crash and explode in Ridgefield, Connecticut yesterday. This resulted in a fiery explosion, the death of a truck driver, and the closing of Route 7. "It looks like a napalm attack or a jungle scene from Vietnam," First Selectman Rudy Marconi said. Flames were estimated to reach 600 feet into the air. Thousands of motorists were stuck in traffic for hours while they were forced to detour around the accident. A bridge was partially destroyed and Route 7 will not reopen for a few more days. "The tragedy of this accident has been compounded by the fact that this is one of the busiest roads in Connecticut, carrying thousands of commuters and other citizens every day,â Conecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell said.
If you are at all familiar with the Norwalk to Danbury route, you know the only major road between these two major Connecticut cities is Route 7 - a two lane road through some very scenic towns - but with more traffic lights than you can shake a stick at, thus causing over 30,000 commuters a long enough commute time as it is. Several parts of Rt. 7 are standstill traffic, especially in Wilton where a series of near consecutuve traffic lights brings Rt 7 to a crawl. The lights in Wilton are timed very poorly since they are short green light durations, thus not allowing enough time to let traffic to get up to speed. There is nothing worse than seeing the light ahead turn green only to see just 6-10 cars make it through. If they just added 10 seconds to both sides - Rt 7 and the side street - just to be fair to Wilton residents, the traffic would move much more smoothly. Another light in Wilton by a school often stops the main Rt 7 traffic when there are no cars pulling out of the school - even during non-school hours. A simple sensor under the pavement would help here.
Route 7 is the route I take for 32 miles and 1 hour and 15 minutes when commuting to work and every morning the traffic seems just a tad worse than the day before due to the fast growing economy in Fairfield County. This is just another reminder of why the Super 7 Expressway needs to be built. For over 50 years environmentalists, community opponents and other opponents have blocked the building of the Super 7.
From http://www.nycroads.com/roads/US-7_CT/:
As tragic the death of this truck driver is, I do hope this tragedy brings attention to our state representatives how congested and dangerous Route 7 truly is. Because frustrated commuters are having longer and longer commutes, they take more chances and endanger other drivers. There is one stretch of highway in Norwalk but it stops at a rock wall as seen in this picture, forcing drivers travelling northboard to make a sharp 90 degree right turn followed by a left turn onto the two-lane old Route 7. They need to blast the damn rock wall and keep on going north through government owned lands.
Here's a top-down view of where they "stopped" the Super 7.(rock wall is bottom of arrow)
In fact, the government has already allocated the necessary land to build the Super 7 Highway on lands which WERE ALLOCATED DECADES ago for the Super 7 project. We're not talking about Eminent Domain here. We're not talking about dislodging hundreds of people from their homes. And even if we are talking about displacing some home owners, that is what eminent domain was created for - public roads, public schools and other public uses.
(Side note: A Connecticut town, Newtown, recently won a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court which allowed Newtown to 'steal' land from a neighborhood and give it to a private organization, namely Pfizer, so they could build a new headquarters. I whole-heartedly oppose this misuse of 'eminent domain' to take private property from one private citiizen and give it to a private corporation. Public use causes such as roads, schools, railroads, etc. for "public use" are applicable within reason.)
Opponents of the Super 7 argue that some wetlands will be impacted. I would argue whatever wetlands are lost or whatever negative environmental impact there may be is more than compensated by the what Super 7 will improve upon - namely saving on wasted fuel burned by thousands of commuters idling in standstill traffic, reduced carbon monoxide & other emissions, reduced fossil fuel usage, etc. And just think of other side effects like less stressed, friendlier, less grumpy New Englanders.
Below are two websites which discusses RT 7, the history of Route 7, and provide contact information to "support the cause" for building the Super 7. I encourage you to check out these websites and contact your local congressman. Also, feel free to post a comment here if you travel Route 7 regularly. Consider the comments an "informal online petition".
- http://www.route7.org/
- http://www.nycroads.com/roads/US-7_CT/
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Tom,
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. I too commute on RT 7 and it has gotten dramatically worse over the years. I believe the plan is to WIDEN the existing RT 7. I think they even started the project today - I heard through the grapevine anyway and I saw some surveyors on Rt 7 this morning. Unfortunately, the widening is only from the gunnery range to the BMW dealership. They should widen all of Rt 7, but this is a good start. THat is quite a bottleneck by Carvel/BMW and the gunnery range.
As for Super 7, the Super 7 plans were put on the back shelf due to politics and lobbying efforts.
The only way things will get better not just on Rt 7, but other troublesome traffic hotspots, is if we do what China does and limit U.S. citizens to just 1 birth per couple. i'm speaking facetiously of course, but population growth will continue to add more and more traffic.
As long as there is not an overriding environmental concern, states such as CT should be able to build roads that improve the conomy, reduce traffic thereby enticing businesses & skilled workers to come to the state, as well as the reduced fossil fuel usage, etc.
Count me in Tom. Build Super 7!
I too believe that Super 7 ought to be built. It is ridiculous that a two lane road carries 30,000 cars per day.
The opponents of Super 7 really have their heads in the sand. Some say the answer is to stop sprawl. Hello? With essentially no houses in lower Fairfield county under $500,000, and few under $1,000,000, people are going to keep sprawling out to cheaper housing. My wife and I moved from Greenwich to Ridgefield last year for "cheaper" housing (I work in Stamford and Greenwich), and many of our friends in Ridgefield are now looking at Southbury, which is about halfway between Danbury and Waterbury, because Ridgefield has gotten too expensive. The average house in Ridgefield is now listed at over $1 million. Ridgefield, Wilton and every other town -- rightly or wrongly -- stop most new development, so for new houses, people have to keep moving on to the next town. There's no alternative to sprawl.
Well, there is one way to stop sprawl. Wait until school is in session and then at midday, blow up a bunch of schools. That'll stop sprawl in the future as the dead kids won't grow up and later find jobs and want to buy houses. However, that's really not a very appropriate solution now, is it?
Others think that improving Metro North is going to be some sort of great help in stopping sprawl. But it won't, for two reasons. First, if you're going to count on lots of people taking Metro North between say Danbury and Stamford, you're going to need massive parking garages at these train stations, and the local neighbors at stops in Redding, Branchville, and Wilton will almost certainly object. Right now these lots are usually filled. So people can't drive to the RR station. Then, when you get to Stamford, how do you get to your job if it's more than about a ten minute walk? Stamford office parks range all the way from down by the coast on Harbor drive all the way up High Ridge. Only a small percentage are really walkable. Finally, taking the RR from Danbury to Stamford would probably require a change in Norwalk, and if you're going Danbury to Greenwich, another change in Stamford.
Some of the anti-Super 7 folks think we can widen existing Route 7. Not a great idea: we need a limited access road, not another Route 1 like Norwalk. Another lane would help, but not much.
The state owns the land, so let's build the expressway already.
Currently, when I commute from Ridgefield to Stamford, if I go to work late, I take Belden Hill Road, then cut over to 33. Once kids were skateboarding on that road, which was totally nuts, and today, a woman was walking her baby in a stroller -- totally inappropriate for a road this busy. I also find that from Stamford, you can take Newfield Avenue up, which has a lot of lights, but then cut through a residential area on North Stamford Road and come out on High Ridge, and then 124 to 35. But commuting on residential streets is really something that you think the state would be interested in preventing, not promoting.
Thanks for the link! And thanks for voicing your support for extending "Super 7."
Here's another interesting link discussing U.S. Route 7 - the history of US 7, Super 7 etc.
http://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/us7.html
Build Super-7 Already! You all should have a good alternative to I-684 to get to NYC so as to reduce the time needed for my commute from Brewster to White Plains. Hell, make it be part of a new I-89 and continue it through Western Mass and VT and fix that messed up numbering of Interstates at the same time. I-89 shouldn't exist east of I-91!