TORRINGTON — Ambitious plans that would have changed the layout and traffic pattern downtown are being shelved by Mayor Ryan Bingham to focus on a new realignment of Main Street with grant money and matching tax money.
The large-scale project that would have made downtown Main Street one-way and added an extension to City Hall Avenue behind the Warner Theatre for diverted northbound traffic isn't dead, the mayor said. It will be reviewed "down the road."
"In the intermediate and long-term — meaning three to five years — our plan is really to utilize the funding that is available and present and do the necessary improvements to increase pedestrian safety, walkability of downtown, improve traffic flow, keep parking the same or add additional parking," Bingham said.
City officials have long acknowledged they did not have the money to complete the one-way Main Street proposal, because it included acquisition of private property and construction of a new street, the extension to City Hall Avenue.
The city already has received three separate grants totaling $2.05 million that will construct new sidewalks, curbs, landscaping, lighting and other utility improvements on both sides of Main Street downtown.
Two years ago, the city received a $750,000 grant to reconstruct sidewalks and other streetscape improvements from Mason Street to Water Street. The mayor is calling this project the first phase. Designs for that portion of the project are preliminary but the city is hoping to meet several deadlines and have that project completed by the summer 2013, before Main Street Marketplace, the annual summer Thursday night street fair.
There's no local contribution necessary with that federal grant but the state Department of Transportation has asked the city to spend $150,000 to repair or replace an underground basement vault under the existing sidewalk, the mayor's office said.
Last summer, the city received $500,000 to do the same thing on the opposite side of Main Street from City Hall Avenue to the Warner Theatre. The mayor hopes to get the second phase of the project under way in the fall of 2013 of spring of 2014. The city has to match 20 percent for that grant.
The third phase includes streetscape improvements on the south side of East Main Street from Center Street to the center bridge and the construction of a river greenway on the south side of the Naugatuck River between South Main Street and Prospect Street.
The third phase will be paid for with a $800,000 grant that has a 20 percent matching component for the city.
As the first three phases move through to the construction phase, the city plans to work on the next leg of the project — realigning the five-way intersection — but funding for that portion isn't a done deal.
The five-way intersection includes Water, Main, South Main, East Main, and Franklin streets.
With years of planning for a one-way Main Street, new design work needs to be done for the intersection project with the state Department of Transportation, the Torrington Development Corporation, and with the public.
The state Department of Transportation is planning an informational meeting Nov. 1 to discuss the plans for the east side of Main Street. Bingham said they hope to touch on the whole project as well.
Before the Nov. 1 meeting, Bingham said, he hopes to convince the executive committee and later the entire committee of the Torrington Development Corporation to buy into his new plan.
"If we can work together on creating a coordinated plan for streetscape improvements, and traffic flow improvements at the five-way intersection, keeping a two-way traffic pattern on Main Street, we can increase pedestrian safety, increase the look and visibility of our downtown, similar to streetscapes we've done on Water Street," Bingham said.
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