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Norwalk Redevelopment Agency concurs: ‘Heated staircase’ idea goes back years

March 6, 2015
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Nancy Guenther Chapman
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Page 23 from the South Norwalk Railroad Station Area Transit Oriented Development Strategy Final Report, submitted by The Cecil Group, Inc. to Norwalk in October 2011.

 

NORWALK, Conn. — The proposal to renovate the staircases along Martin Luther King Drive in the area of the South Norwalk railroad station well predates the 2013 election of Mayor Harry Rilling, in spite of a conspiracy theory now floating on NancyOnNorwalk.

“I know a certain someone was a heavy hitter supporter of the Rilling Administration and perhaps this is a favor in return,” In a Funk posted here Wednesday.

Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Tim Sheehan referred inquiries to Senior Project Manager Susan Sweitzer, who he said is in charge of the staircase projects.

Sweitzer wrote:

“Assessment of the staircases began as part of the existing conditions analysis prepared by CDM Smith at which time the stairs were in the mix of proposed Complete Streets roadway and pedestrian improvements.

“The stairs were the specific focus of a public community meeting June 13, 2013 to discuss pedestrian and bicycle access between the SoNo Station and surrounding neighborhoods. The public comment confirmed that the stairs were used by a considerable number of pedestrians, poorly illuminated, unsafe, impassable in snow and ice.  There was specific discussion on improvements including lighting, bike ramps, snow melt and police call boxes among district-wide connectivity issues.  Possible stair designs were presented and commented upon.

“July 19, 2013 Community meeting to review pedestrian and bicycle connections between the SoNo Station and surrounding neighborhoods. The community reviewed 10 display exhibits featuring opportunities and challenges within the neighborhood and concepts for the stairs. The public posted preferences for design and comments on lighting and security.

“November 13, 2013 Community meeting to review proposed improvements to pedestrian and bicycle networks. There were a number of newspaper articles and internet comments on the project components.

“December 18, 2013 these public comments because the posted proposed Roadway Improvements to be included in the CDM Smith Norwalk TOD Pilot Program Conceptual Design Report.”

Sweitzer went on to explain that “both meetings were to get community input on Complete Streets priorities, but both offered staircase option designs for public response.  Both June and July community meetings were at the Norwalk Police Station Community Room and the attendance varied but probably averaged out at about 20 people.”

Bike/Walk Task Force Co-Chairman Mike Mushak offered further details in a comment on this website.

“This staircase project has been studied and vetted for at least 6 years,” Mushak said. “…The two staircases (at Clay and Hamilton, although this project is only for Clay) were first identified in the 2009 Intermodal Facility Study as being in poor and dangerous condition.”

“This of course is not only absurd that the mayor would be so unethical as to hand out ‘rewards’ like this, but it is laughable to imagine that Mayor Rilling would have controlled 6 years of studies and approvals, mostly under the Moccia Administration and always under a GOP-controlled Council, simply to arrange a personal gift in the form of a public TOD improvement,” Mushak wrote.

As proof, Mushak linked to the South Norwalk Railroad Station Area Transit Oriented Development Strategy Final Report, submitted by The Cecil Group, Inc. to Norwalk in October 2011. Page 23 includes this on a list: “Rebuild staircases connecting the Golden Hill Neighborhood to South Norwalk and improve pedestrian crossings at those locations.”

Mushak said this was taken word for word from the 2009 Intermodal Facility Study.

Mushak’s assertion is validated by scrolling down to page 197 of the PDF, to find page 62 of the Existing Conditions: Evaluation Report, a passage that can also be easily found by searching for the word “stairways”:

“As discussed, there is a significant grade change between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and the Golden Hill Neighborhood. Accordingly, east-west access to the station is provided by two stairways connecting the neighborhoods to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. These stairways are located at the end of Hamilton Street and the end of Clay Street and are shown on the as shown on the map highlighting existing pedestrian conditions. The June 2009 South Norwalk Railroad Station Intermodal Facility Study indicated that the stairways were in substandard condition and recommended a rehabilitation and reconstruction of the facilities. A field visit confirmed the condition of the stairways.”

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A screen capture of a page the from South Norwalk Railroad Station Area Transit Oriented Development Strategy Final Report, submitted by The Cecil Group, Inc. to Norwalk in October 2011.

 

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13 responses to “Norwalk Redevelopment Agency concurs: ‘Heated staircase’ idea goes back years”

  1. Nurse Ratchet

    Yeah that should sure settle up things, Harry gives Mike new heated stairs, with lights. There ya go Mike, want a bow on your ribbon cutting ceremony? We gonna name them Mushak’s stairway to paradise? lol. People get your feet back on the ground, this is a public project for public benefit. Let’s not go flying over that cuckoo nest again, shall we not?

  2. John Hamlin

    The stairs will be an enhancement for pedestrians and consistent with the wider transportation goals. It would be easier to look elsewhere for useless projects if you were so inclined –for example, the Van Zant/Fort Point traffic lights that make traffic flow worse and solve no problem; the Rowayton rail underpass project that was opposed by residents. The new stair project deserves support — unless you want to make it about personalities and not improvelents.

  3. Suzanne

    Mr. Hamlin, I have no objection to the project’s merits. I am just wondering why it is such a mainstay controversy or effort by multiple committees, councils, experts and non experts going on for years and, now, years and years. I think this points to the inefficient strategies taken by Norwalk government to get the job done. It has been raised in importance to the heights of silliness considering its size and scope.

  4. Mike Mushak

    Councilman Dave McCarthy owes the public an apology, including the thousands of folks in South Norwalk who he was so ready to compromise their safety for, and his fellow Councilmembers for misleading them with false information for months on this project, in what appears to be game of petty politics that became botched by his own lack of information.

    The truth is the heating element was 6% of this project, or $15,000, and common sense tells us will pay for itself in reducing staff time and salt use, improving public safety, and reducing liability for the city since they often do not get there in time to clear ice and snow off the steps after storms as many have attested to. It also reduces corrosion on the concrete and pollution from the extremely heavy use of salt needed anyone can see on the steps now.

    Dave’s questions about the heating could have been answered months ago by RDA staff in the very first Public Works meeting when these were on the agenda, but where DPW staff inexplicably told the RDA their presence would not be necessary because they could answer all the questions. But when the discussion arose, DPW staff did not answer questions of the committee and said they had little information on the subject. It seemed calculated to many of us to create controversy where none existed, or to possibly kill the project, and to make a bigger issue out of this than it needed to be.

    It was also clear someone made sure the Hour was there to make it a front page story, which of course they did, adding fuel to the fire. And so it has, except in all the wrong ways apparently for Dave McCarthy.

    The South Norwalk community is not amused, and will remember this unnecessary fiasco for a long time.

    Dave also owes NON an apology for his baseless attack yesterday in his comment on the previous article. This is not proper behavior for a Councilmember. It is more like Bill O’Reilly’s personal threats to reporters questioning his inconsistencies in his war reporting record recently, which is nothing more than thuggery.

    The saga will hopefully be over soon, but yesterday it took a twist towards the surreal when Dave admitted in a comment on NON that he never even read the TOD study APPROVED by the Common Council in 2011 that included the stairway projects (before he was on the Council), but instead through the link he shared he clearly only read the 35-page Powerpoint of the study that was prepared for a meeting that does not mention the stairway improvements.

    Dave concluded that the staircases were not in that study at all as a result of his studying the powerpoint and not the actual study. These are his words from his comment on NON yesterday:

    “Bottom Line: This work was never approved by anyone. It is not in the TOD Plan, in any specific way, unless you consider “Improve the Pedestrian and Bicycle Links to the South Norwalk Train Station” to be a plan to put in a heated stair case. You are, once again, misleading people to discredit me, and by extension the Republican Party, former Mayor Moccia and a number of people that give their time to try and improve the city, while still adhering to a process.”

    NON did not politicize this issue, Dave McCarthy did by that comment. NON had described the staircase project in a comment, not in the article, as having been discussed and approved mostly during the Moccia Administration, in response to another anonymous commenter referred to in this article who said the staircase was a payback from Harry Rilling to me personally. NON’s comment was to simply to put the project into a timeframe context to disprove that absurd theory, and it was clearly not intended to “discredit” anyone.

    The truth is, as NON reports above, the staircase projects were discussed for over 6 years of professional studies and public meetings, held mostly during the Moccia Administration and when the GOP controlled the Council. There were 3 public meetings in 2013 which Dave could have attended to share his thoughts on the TOD improvements including the staircases, but he did not attend, and now pretends that the meetings never even happened. Poof. Just like that.

    The real irony here is that Dave McCarthy is a self-proclaimed TOD supporter and former SWRPA member, which I applaud, and when the stairways were listed last year on the capital budget that he VOTED YES for, he had many opportunities to ask questions about the line item in numerous budget meetings, especially since he supports TOD and you would think would have taken an interest in a large TOD budget number. If nothing else, wasn’t he at least curious what the TOD improvements were all about before he voted to pay for them in the capital budget?

    But instead, he waited until this year where he decided he would turn this much-needed public safety improvement that had been discussed for over 6 years of public meetings and approvals into a hot-button political issue through calculated maneuvers and spreading false information to the public and to members of both parties on the Common Council, after reading a powerpoint instead of an actual study, and pretending that 6 years of meetings and professional studies and Council approvals never happened.

    By the way, no one from the public ever spoke against the staircase projects in any of the public meetings, unlike the $3 million Rowayton Ave project where a majority of the speakers from the community at many public meetings over held over many years opposed the huge scale of that project and lack of sidewalks into town, which is mostly what the community requested in the first place, not giant out-of-scale fortress-like retaining walls that block sightlines and decrease safety. Dave McCarthy fully supported that project even though it could have been scaled back and sidewalks added into town. His community is still wondering what happened there.

    And after supporting the overscale $3 million Rowayton Ave project that never accomplished what the community originally requested for years in public meetings, he is now going bonkers over a $15,000 heating element to keep snow and ice off of heavily used stairs in our urban core that were poorly maintained and unsafe for years?

    We will be waiting for the apology. Be a gentleman and do the right thing.

  5. Ratcheting Up A Notch

    This comment, and any future comments from this person who uses multiple screen names, has been disallowed for violation of the comment policy — in this case, a triple violation despite prior notice.

    From the comment policy:

    This is something every child in the U. S. is being taught: Do not insult, bully, threaten or harass the writers or your fellow commenters. Continued violators will be banned.

    Offensive, inappropriate or annoying comments – basically, being a troll – may be deleted or subjected to distempering. Trolls will be banned.

    Character assassination by innuendo will not be tolerated and will result in a loss of comment privileges.

  6. sofaman

    Well once again, Mr. Mushak is shown to be the adult in the room with both his facts, and his logic straight. This whole staircase storyline continues the Norwalk tradition of viewing any expense on pedestrian improvements as “wasteful”. Mayor Rilling’s predecessor once quipped that a bicycle lane – leading to the town’s beach – was for ‘elites’.

    I have walked, more than once, from the South Norwalk train station to my home near the Wilton border. I’d suggest anyone who views the staircase, sidewalks, bike lanes, etc. as wasteful to do the same. Walk for more than 5 minutes from your home in Norwalk, and you’ll quickly see how dangerous it is. Is this REALLY the kind of town you want your families to live in?

  7. Gordon Tully

    As a member of the TOD community advisory group, I assure you that the pros and cons of a heated staircase were thoroughly vetted and the stairway was included as an essential element in the TOD plan, as Mike Mushak has detailed. The designers and planners who recommended the staircase were excellent and highly qualified. The notion that they were influenced behind the scenes by then Police Chief Rilling is beyond absurd.

  8. WOW just WOW

    250,000 for a stairway???? This is insane, as you could build a house for less. Yet more waste.

  9. Concerned

    Still discussing the heated staircase, huh? Yep, Norwalk is full of ‘movers and shakers.’ Fix the stairs, buy a new shovel and some sand for next year. DONE – next problem.

  10. Mike Mushak

    More misinformation being spread here by Wow Just Wow. . The staircase is not $250,000. It is $60,000. The rest includes new sidewalks, guardrail, lighting, drainage, and a new crosswalk across Flax Hill with associated work.

    The huge and very busy Ben Franklin Community Center is right across Flax Hill from the stairway and also generates a lot of foot traffic for the stairway, and will only increase as programs increase when the new CAP agency is selected to replace NEON.

  11. Wineshine

    Mike, you’re parsing again. The rest of the money doesn’t get spent without the staircase. Again, I’ll sell you a new car for $200. Oh yes, everything but the heated seats are extra though.

  12. Mike Mushak

    Wineshine, why don’t you attend a BikeWalk Task Force meeting, held on the first Monday of every month at the Health Department at 7 pm? We would love to hear your feedback and you can meet all of us who are working hard in the trenches to make Norwalk safer. I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting!

  13. Wineshine

    Mike, while you didn’t address the issue of the real cost, I thank you for your suggestion. My first free “first Monday” is in June and it’s on my calendar. I’ll keep up with your minutes online until then.

    Until then, please keep in mind, that you can’t legislate intelligence, and stupid acts lead to unsafe situations. This city is as safe as the people who inhabit it. It’s the responsibility of Norwalk residents to respect the safety of their fellow Norwalkers.

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