Opinion

Editorial

The Curse of I-91 Continues

Call it the ‘curse of I-91.’
Since about 20 minutes after it opened — and well before it was constructed, actually, when elected officials decided to build it on the east side of the Connecticut River rather than the west, as was originally planned  — this road has been a problem for the city of Springfield.

It slices through the downtown, effectively cutting it off from the river. It essentially destroyed much of the character and cohesiveness of the city’s South End neighborhood. And while it has helped this region promote itself as the ‘crossroads of New England’ — I-91 and the turnpike intersect here — the highway seems to have become more efficient at enabling people to pass through this area than stop here.

And now, the curse continues.

Indeed, at perhaps the most pivotal time in recent memory, a time when Springfield seems ready to shake off decades of stagnation and experience some real growth, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has decided that the highway’s viaduct section must undergo a massive repair and reconstruction project (see story, page 32).

When we say massive, we mean it. At $260 million, this repair project will cost more than the entire highway when it was built in the late ’60s. That price tag is several times higher than the next-largest public-works initiative in the region’s history — the Great River Bridge project in Westfield.

And massive is also the word that will undoubtedly be used to describe the negative impact that will result from what the DOT says could be two or three constructions seasons of work, but will more likely be more — perhaps much more.

Anyone who lived through the reconstruction of the Memorial Bridge, the I-91 ramp project that coincided with the opening of the new Basketball Hall of Fame, or the South End Bridge repair initiative knows that projections about how long and painful such undertakings will be are generally well off the mark.

For this latest project, the DOT is touting the virtues of something called ABC, or accelerated bridge construction, practices. This involves use of pre-cast concrete sections of road, work that continues something approaching 24/7, and other steps designed to reduce the duration, and therefore the headaches, of this project.

For those tempted to be skeptical — and to borrow from the famous line in that old movie — ‘be skeptical … be very skeptical.’

This project has the potential to make the Memorial Bridge project look like a minor inconvenience — and that took six years to complete after construction crews started tearing up the deck and discovered that practically the entire bridge had to be reconstructed, while it remained open.

The I-91 project will lead to ramp closures and the funneling of traffic to East and West Columbus avenues, roads that cannot handle much more traffic than they’re already handling. And portions of the I-91 North and I-91 South parking garages will be closed, creating more inconvenience for people trying to get to downtown office towers, Symphony Hall, and especially the Hampden County Hall of Justice, which is due to be replaced, but certainly not in time for this project.

There’s also the matter of MGM Springfield, the $800 million casino planned for the South End. If all goes well — meaning the attempt to ban gaming via a statewide referendum fails — construction on those facilities should start just around the same time work begins on the highway. This means that two of the biggest construction projects in the region’s history will be going on simultaneously — and within a few hundred feet of one another.

And then, there are those 17 days in September when the Big E opens its gates. I-91 is already bumper to bumper through many days of the fair, especially the weekends. Now imagine the situation when two of the six lanes of traffic are shut down and ramps off the highway are closed.

But there’s another aspect to this curse. On top of all this uncertainty and inconvenience, the repair project, deemed necessary and not to be delayed, will essentially end any and all talk of doing something more dramatic with the highway, such as taking it underground or to street level.

Those who say that federal and state governments won’t do anything with a road they just spent at least $260 million to repair are right on the money with their analysis. If (it’s more like when, the way things look now) this project proceeds as scheduled, this city will have to live with the viaduct for probably another half-century.

And that’s why you could certainly call this the ‘curse of I-91.’