When dozens of dignitaries gathered in a light rain Monday morning to cut a purple ribbon stretched between two orange construction barrels to mark the opening of a stretch of the new Route 72 extension, the man most responsible for the road wasn’t there.
Former state Rep. Kosta Diamantis, who brokered the 1993 compromise that allowed the 2.2-mile road to win approval, said he didn’t really mind.
“It’s a beautiful road,” Diamantis said. “It’s everything I expected it to be. They’ve outdone themselves.”
For Susan Halloran, a Plymouth resident, the new byway is “a lot nicer than I thought it would be.”
She was one of the first drivers to head east along the four-lane boulevard-style extension between the end of the expressway in Plainville and Emmett Street.
The road opened, with a 40-mile-an-hour speed limit, about noon Monday after Gov. Jodi Rell and other officials held a short ceremony to mark the event.
“Go ahead, pinch yourselves. It is real,” Rell told the crowd of about 60 people who snuggled under several small catering tents set up in the median a few hundred yards past the intersection with Route 372. Click here for the full story.
Here's some video that Press photographer Chris Richie took during the opening ceremony:
For those who have been on it today, what do you think? Better than expected? Worse?
*****
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
4 comments:
new Route 72:
Great for people in Plymouth...terrible for people on Kenney Street.
But wait! Sex offenders will have limited access to the new school!
What great land use!
Taking a ride down the new highway this evening, it's apparent that you can get through Forestville ten times faster (and that's not an exaggeration) than if you used East Main to Broad Street.
The question (as it has been) is what will happen at Middle Street? One would think a massive traffic pile up. How about the trucks barreling through the intersection that used to be the entrance to the limited access part of 72 (now the beginning of 372)? What about the increased traffic on South Street and the traffic pouring into the Boulevard and Riverside Ave.?
It seems like a lot of tax money and effort for a traffic experiment. Is all this worth saving five to ten minutes? What if they just widened Pine Streets and Broad Streets? Why didn't they tear down the old Sessions building and that dump which housed Steve Coan's nightmare and run the highway through that area (instead of the backyards of the people on Kenney Street)?
This new highway seems like more of our government out of control as usual.
"any road is a good road"
ceasar
Ah by the way...since its not a highway...whats the name of the road...Did anyone even think of that??????
Post a Comment