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in 1958 national trends of downtown urban renewal and roadway
construction plans were in their hay day. in hindsight Bethel
can be glad that the forces did not rip apart its Downtown.
But the 1958 Bethel Town Plan was very much in the mind set
of that era. This
item is included as it is of historical interest and shows
how far transportation policy has evolved since then.
Below
are excerpts from the 1958 Town Plan:
“A
major limited-access expressway, designed on the Plan for
four lanes of center-separated traffic with grade separations
(over-passes) over railroad and major streets, wide shoulders
and deceleration lanes, and exit and entrance ramps at several
locations.
This is
desperately needed to relieve the traffic congestion in the
business center along Greenwood Avenue, now strangling under
the burden of 9,000 cars a day, which amounts to a daytime
average of 500 an hour, or one every 8 seconds, with a jam
of traffic in peak hours even worse....
Above
is an excerpt from the Bethel Town Plan of 1958,
proposing to provide the Downtown with limited access
expressway service as a bypass to Route 302
The
proposed facility would connect Milwaukee Avenue (at the east
end of Greenwood Avenue) with an exit and entrance on Maple
Avenue (near the corner of Chestnut Street and Main, at the
east end of business center), with another exit and entrance
north of Library Place (west end of business center), and
with the northerly end of Grassy Plain Street. This will carry
the through traffic around the center while providing much
improved east-west access to the center itself.
Traffic
destined for the center will arrive there more quickly, leave
the by-pass and be directly on the “loop” street
serving the parking areas adjacent to stores.
With the
by-pass crossing the railroad on an overpass, Bethel will
no longer be a community divided by each passing train. Attractive
landscaping, a civic project, on the new by-pass (such as
on the Merritt Parkway) could greatly enhance the approach
to Bethel’s business center and provide effective civic
advertising.”
BETHEL
INTRO
--- BETHEL
RT 6 --- BETHEL
RT 53 SOUTH --- BETHEL
RT 53 NORTH
BETHEL
RT 58 --- BETHEL
RT 302 --- BETHEL
NON-STATE ROADWAYS
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