Werner Liepolt lives in the Bridge Street Historic District. Valerie Seiling Jacobs is a member of Save Westport Now.
Both have closely followed deliberations over the future of the 135-year-old Cribari Bridge. Long stalled — like traffic heading to it — the state Department of Transportation has recently shown new interest in a replacement. Werner and Valerie write:
We’ve all seen it: traffic backed up on Bridge Street across the Cribari Bridge, distracted drivers with out-of-state plates checking their smartphones, and the line of cars clogging Riverside Avenue and Greens Farms Road.
It was bad in 2015, when the Connecticut Department of Transportation first started talking about fixing the historic swing bridge. But it’s only gotten worse since COVID.
The stream of traffic coming from I-95 is remorseless, especially in the morning. Pity parents trying to shepherd their youngsters across the street to catch the school bus. or commuters trying to get to the railroad station. A drive to Compo Beach during the summer can put you on Bridge Street for half an hour.
Bridge Street traffic: 7:40 a.m., May 29, 2025. (Photo/Werner Liepolt)
You know all this. You live here. And that’s exactly why Jim Marpe, our former first selectman, refused to vote to release the money for a DOT study.
He recognized that DOT was likely to recommend building a new, state-of-the-art bridge, one that would be tall enough to accommodate 18-wheelers and thus invite even more I-95 spillover and Waze traffic.
But here’s the rub: our current first selectwoman seems oblivious to the problem. Last year she voted to release $4.1 million to the DOT to begin work on the project.
On May 15, DOT held its first meeting in Westport about the bridge since 2018.
William F. Cribari Bridge. (Photo/Ferdinand Jahnel)
Of all the neighbors, only registered “stakeholder” Werner Liepolt was invited to attend, although the public was not. In the invitation, the DOT noted that there had been “significant developments” concerning the project.
At the meeting, however, we learned the only “developments” appear to be that:
- The DOT has been asked by Tooker to do a traffic study on the Saugatuck side of the bridge only, presumably to accommodate the proposed Hamlet development, which she supports; and
- DOT is now officially recommending that we build a new, bigger bridge — one that will be weight-bearing and tall enough for 18-wheelers.
Needless to say, the stakeholders in the room were outraged. We reiterated what we had said in 2018: that a taller bridge will invite more traffic and trucks when I-95 backs up.
Matthew Mandell, a Representative Town Meeting member, wanted more information on how to obtain an exemption from current building specs, a request that Valerie Seiling Jacobs of Save Westport Now echoed.
She also asked if DOT had considered the impact of increased traffic on air quality — especially given Westport’s ongoing ozone issues. (They had not.)
Maggie Dallal and other young mothers described how difficult it is to cross Bridge Street to get their kids to the bus stop.
School bus crawls along Bridge Street: 7:47 a.m., May 29, 2025. (Photo/Werner Liepolt)
John Suggs, of the Westport Preservation Alliance, reminded DOT that the bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and that Bridge Street is an official “Scenic” route, 2 designations that entitle us to special dispensation.
And Paul Lebowitz, chair of the Planning & Zoning Commission, reminded everyone that the traffic and truck problem had been discussed at the 2018 DOT meeting.
A potential solution had been floated then: building a bridge that would look like the current bridge (e.g, it would have ornamental trusses), but would not be tall enough to accommodate 18-wheelers.
What happened to that idea? Lebowitz wanted to know.
The DOT seemed flummoxed by the crowd’s reaction, perhaps because none of them had been at the 2018 meeting (all those folks have since moved on).
Still, they insisted that a new bridge would not invite more truck or other traffic. In fact, they claimed that a new bridge would actually speed up traffic and reduce idling time, apparently ignoring the fact that everyone would still need to get through the intersection at Riverside and Bridge Street.
Moreover, they seemed to think that trucks would not choose this route even if I-95 backs up.
The Riverside Avenue side of the Cribari Bridge.
Are their memories so short that they do not recall how the fiery crash on I-95 in 2024 prompted hundreds of trucks to cut through Westport? Everyone in the area remembers how our police department had to stop truck traffic due to 18-wheelers jumping the sidewalks.
It’s true that the DOT reps at the front of the auditorium “duly noted” many of the concerns we raised, implying that they would look into those matters. At the very end of the meeting however, in a complete ambush, the chief DOT engineer for the project — who had apparently been in the audience all along but had not previously identified himself — took the microphone and made it clear that DOT intends to build a new bridge that will accommodate all truck traffic — thereby making a mockery of his junior colleague’s “duly noted” promises.
At this past Thursday’s Traffic and Pedestrian Safety meeting, we stood together with residents of the area and insisted that the Westport Traffic Authority demand comprehensive surveys and plans for traffic abatement and resident safety from DOT before any decision is made about the Cribari Bridge.
We must stand together as a community, and tell our first selectwoman and DOT that anything less is unacceptable.
We deserve to have a voice in what happens in our community.
(If you agree, please email contactsavewestportnow@gmail.com to add your name to the roster of residents who will save the town from this hasty, dangerous, foolish plan.)
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