Work to begin on CT Fastrak

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Not everyone is happy to hear the sound of humming chainsaws as the beginning of construction on the new Hartford-New Britain busway looms.

According to the Hartford Courant, tree clearing is set to begin on Thursday as part of the Hartford-New Britain busway project.

The busway will include 11 stations in New Britain, Newington, West Hartford and Hartford. The goal of the $550 million busway plan is to help ease travel in the Hartford area.
    
"It's a big waste of money, it's a big waste of time," said Rick Nelson of New Britain.

Tree clearing is just beginning in the process of turning Nelson's backyard into a road just for buses called CT Fastrak.
 
The idea is for 10 miles from New Britain to Hartford a fleet of buses will run every few minutes making 11 stops along the way.
   
For Nelson, it not only means a big disruption to his peaceful backyard, but they're telling him and his neighbors they'll have to move fences and a shed that are a foot over the property line.

"This shed has to be moved," he said. "That shed gotta be moved, that's been there forever."

For much of its path through New Britain, the busway runs through cemeteries. The people still living nearby say it's going to ruin the quality of their lives for the next few months while they build it.

"You don't want to wake up to that or hear that all day for however many months it takes to be done," Nelson said.

He is worried about noise, security, snow removal, property values and whether enough people will use it to justify the cost of more than half a billion dollars.

At the groundbreaking last week, Governor Malloy said people will use it when a big upgrade of I-84 begins to tie up traffic, but most importantly, he says construction workers need the jobs.

Nelson knows all about that, he's an iron worker by trade, but says CT Fastrak is not the investment anyone needs.

"There's so many things they could use the money for right now, bridges, schools, even the road," he said. "Look at the road, that could be fixed, but instead we're getting a busway and no one takes the bus now."

He says he knows there's no going back now, as work is expected to begin on Thursday.