Senator William H. Nickerson (R-Greenwich) gained support today for his bill establishing a new highway sound barrier plan. At today’s Transportation Committee public hearing on sound barriers Nickerson said:

“Since the sound barrier program was terminated in the early 1990’s there has been enormous growth in both car and truck traffic on I-95, which is now operating far over its design capacity, making living conditions for many adjacent residents unbearable. At today’s hearing there was a call for re-opening this program. Nickerson pointed out the only practical and fair way to address this need is to require the Department of Transportation to do a science based study to determine the decibel level in all the effected communities adjoined to I-95. The DOT should then produce a prioritized list of locations where barriers should be built, ordering the build-out program according to scientific need. If each individual affected community simply says “me first” the result will be the same as it has been for fifteen years: nothing!

In earlier years the political struggle between towns has proved to be a self defeating zero-sum game. We can and must break out of this cycle by allocating funding to re-start a sound barrier build-out program, and allocate scarce dollars on a scientifically prioritized basis. Many legislators who spoke at today’s hearing spoke out in favor of this concept.”

Preliminary prioritization of potential sound barrier projects prepared by the DOT in October 2006.