Urban Dispatch

🧵 Drivers have killed at least 61 pedestrians/cyclists, so far, this year in Connecticut.

The most recent preventable death happened on December 5, 2025.

www.realhartford.org/pedestrian-m...

Long double loaded corridor floor plan design showing deep dark apartments

Look at how ridiculous these floorplans are

The exterior wall looks like a 3 year old trying to draw a straight line. The 2-stair design = a long interior hallway eating up a ton of livable space. Every apartment is super deep & dark. Plus you live in a parking lot

It doesn't need to be this way!

Wethersfield OKs 160-unit apartment development at former nursing home site Under the proposal, the current structure will be demolished and replaced with three mid-rise multifamily residential buildings.

Well anyway, glad some more families get a modern safe home. Happy this went through

hartfordbusiness.com/article/weth...

Site plan showing three standalone buildings set amongst large parking lots, driveways, and road setbacks

Modern zoning is perfectly designed to build places that straight up suck to live. Why do we do subject ourselves to this?

Crazy fact: This single new project is adding more homes to Wethersfield than they have allowed in the last 21 yrs combined... only 160 new homes... in a town of 30k people! 🤯

Will widening I-95 in Stamford help traffic? CT DOT is considering it The agency will hold a pair of public meetings next week regarding the future of I-95, including an in-person forum at Ferguson Library.

Here is an article about widening a highway that doesn't get to the fact that RESEARCH UNIFORMLY SHOWS THAT HIGHWAY WIDENING DOESN'T WORK until paragraph 19. The argument in favor of highway widening appears in paragraphs 15, 16, and 17, from a trucking industry spokesman, without supporting data.

What else have I missed?

Here's what I can think of so far
-Waterbury line getting all new high level platforms
-Rail line electrification study launched, new delayed 2+ years
-Lots of highway "safety" upgrades from extending auxiliary lanes to large rebuilds of interchanges

-CT Rail orders new rail cars (finally)
CT Rail projects that pre-date the executive order continue to rollout thanks to massive influx of Biden Bucks:
-Time for CT
-Replacing key rail bridges
-Hartford Line double tracking continues to progress
-New HL Stations at Windsor Locks & Enfield

-CT DOT rolled out a "complete street" planning policy to ensure their projects include sidewalks, sidepaths, and other non vehicle
-CT DOT continues to build out its Bike/Ped department and is working on statewide plans
-CT DOT is in the process of shopping underutilized land for TOD

-After years being stalled, CMDA is finally funded and has been working on town center low VMT development
-After multiple years and one veto, Work Live Ride finally passes incentivizing town center development
-Various state agencies continue to actively penalize walkable town center development

-DEEP prioritizes E-cars over E-bike in state voucher program
-CT Leg forces Shore Line East expansion
-Continues funding sidewalk/trail projects at ~$25M/yr
-CT Rail fares increase
-CT Leg stops bus fare increase
-Gas tax stays flat, unchanged since 2000
-CT Leg abolishes parking mandates... twice

-Middling bus frequency improvements (extended hourly service by a few hours or into the weekends)
-New low frequency bus lines added focused on commuter service to industrial parks and amazon warehouses
-New service added to Hartford Line and Waterbury - still less than hourly

But a roundup of where what (major)has changed since 2021 when he issued his VMT reduction executive order:
- Hartford major highway expansion announced
- Waterbury major highway expansion announced
- Stamford major highway expansion tentatively planned for
-Danbury expansion begins

My problem with Ned is he doesn't really hold public beliefs. There's a bunch of good people working for him but because the governor just likes being "in the club" he doesn't bash heads to get to the desired outcome and once a few people start complaining he looks for "the reasonable middle ground"

Will widening I-95 in Stamford help traffic? CT DOT is considering it The agency will hold a pair of public meetings next week regarding the future of I-95, including an in-person forum at Ferguson Library.

Something is telling me that Lamont isn't particularly committed to his 2030 VMT reduction target...

ctmirror.org/2025/12/05/i...

A disappointingly small number of people got this

UConn hires new football coach with stellar track record Jason Candle is leaving Toledo, where he was winningest coach in school history, to take over UConn’s football program.

Sourcing the next UConn Football head coach from Connecticut's Western Reserve as is proper

www.courant.com/2025/12/06/u...

Lemme tell you my story: My wife and I moved to Manchester in 2015. No family here, never lived in New England before. I started going to Democratic Town Committee meetings. In 2017 I was named to a vacant seat on the Ethics Committee, then helped start a Skatepark Committee…

Did y'all know that the head of ConnDOT's Public Transit bureau just up and left suddenly in October giving almost no notice?

Don't think its been covered anywhere, heard it second hand

www.metroqc.com/Blog.aspx?II...

"Longstanding principle" implies it's an informal arrangement rather than the totally unambiguous text of the constitution.

Don't print lies in the newspaper

Was it super cool and mysterious and portal like? Absolutely! Otherworldly even

However, It is very good to be able to see

Tunnel Along Major, Historic Connecticut Recreational Trail Gets Its Lights Things are a lot brighter now at the tunnel serving a major trail system in Connecticut.

Coverage of the opening here: patch.com/connecticut/...

For Popular Trail, There's Light at the End - and the Beginning, and the Middle - of the Tunnel - UConn Today UConn students' Service Learning project will help make the Hop River Trail safer for the thousands of bikers and pedestrians who use it

At long last, the Bolton Notch rail trail tunnel has lights!

All because two UConn friends decided that they wanted to make it happen. Major props to these two

today.uconn.edu/2022/07/let-...

Ain't that the truth

They often get things like this wrong, definitely not a source of truth

Bus Map crayon with a route that turns down High Street from Albany Ave to get to Union Station and continues onto Hartford South Meadows

The real solution is to redo the regional bus network and increase the number of places that you can more easily get to Hartford Union from but we're super not ready for that convo

Like I would do this route if given the chance

of service. Dropping a small cheap, platform only station here and in Parkville could develop into major transfer points. In no way am I saying they should relace Hartford Union.

Where this idea fails is the general poor quality of destinations excepting Springfield and New Haven

Here's the logic: Getting to Union Station if you're outside the walkshed sucks because the bus network terminates on the east side of downtown. This corner is one of the busiest in the city from a transit ridership standpoint (people in buses that pass through it) and would enable great integration

Huh, that's news to me! A lot with a long history of being a lot lol

I think from @kerriana.bsky.social research and posts about its on and off history as a park and gathering place I thought it might have been formalized at some point

www.realhartford.org/2019/05/08/l...

Good earth view of Hartford with the intersection circled

This is also overtop the Amtrak rail line, it is one of two locations in the city that should have a New Haven State Street style mini rail station but no one is ready to have that conversation

CT organization with broad impact plans new, $35M headquarters. Site reflects ‘who we are’ The location of the planned headquarters is particularly notable because it is firmly planted in one of the poorest neighborhoods.

I do have to ask, is this not park land? @rsgat.bsky.social

There are alternatives right there I guess with Tower park and the new Arrowhead plaza. It isn't like tunnel park has been well utilized or maintained through the years

www.courant.com/2025/12/06/c...