Bridges
What to Make of the Proposal to Span Long Island Sound with a 14-Mile — White Elephant?
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Why is much of Connecticut talking about a bridge from Bridgeport, across Long Island Sound, to New York State? How did we get sucked into a debate about a project that every transportation expert I spoke with said just won’t happen? You can blame (or maybe credit?) Connecticut housing developer Stephen Shapiro for this distraction as he pipe-dreams way outside his area of expertise. “A reporter from The CT Post called me to talk about housing,” he told WFSB’s “CT ‘25”. “I always liked the idea of a bridge. And now this thing has ballooned into a massive story.”
He even helped by generating a lovely artificial intelligence image of the structure, complete with red, white and blue towers, which was gobbled up by the media. A 14-mile bridge, costing a guesstimated $50 billion? It’s a good thing Shapiro didn’t dangle the idea of flying cars to the reporter. Shapiro has never built a bridge. His expertise is in affordable housing projects in cities like Bristol, Fairfield, Milford and Easton. That’s great, and certainly needed. But a bridge?