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.”Shapiro on WFSB 10-5-25
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 fourteen 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? Nah.
I asked CDOT about the idea of
such a bridge and they said “None of the regional MPOs (regional planning
agencies) have this in their long-range plans. It is not in CTDOT’s
long-range plan for the state either.”
It’s not that our state’s
planners lack vision… just money. They
must focus on the feasible, not fanciful.
Shapiro says a cross-sound
bridge would get Connecticut residents to the lovely Long Island beaches
faster. But that’s hardly the
justification for a $50B bridge. And anyhow,
what’s wrong with Connecticut’s beaches?
As for the $50B estimated
price… Shapiro says the new Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, the Mario Cuomo
Bridge, cost $4B for its three mile length.
“If you prorate that out to
fifteen miles, it’s $20B,” he says.
Factor in inflation and adding a train line on the bridge and you’re at
$30B. Rounding upward, because things
always cost more than planned, and he suggests a $50B price tag is reasonable.
But is that a fair
calculation? Is that how Shapiro bids on
housing development jobs?
And what would it cost to
drive across this hypothetical bridge?
Shapiro suggests a one-way toll of about $40.Shapiro's AI vision of a bridge to NY
Compare that to the one-way
fare of about $75 for a car and driver on the Bridgeport – Port Jefferson ferry. That makes Shapiro’s bridge look like a
bargain… except only those who take the ferry pay the fare. Build a bridge and all of us taxpayers pay
for it, even if we never go to the Hamptons.
And if there were a bridge,
wouldn’t that just worsen traffic in Connecticut with more New Yorkers going to
New England?
The idea of bridging LI Sound
has been studied
by experts as recently as 2017. They concluded that there were serious
environmental issues and maybe ten or more state and federal agencies would need
to be involved. Most concerning, the
report said that tolls would cover only 22% of the debt service (with guess-who
paying the difference) and that it would take five years to plan and eight
years to build.
Meantime, our state’s housing
crisis is happening right now. I wish Shapiro
would focus on his real skill-set and not dangle unfeasible, bright shiny
objects in front of a click-hungry media.
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