Because there’s no money for those sound barriers. State DOT officials this afternoon told the Trnasportation Committee the program of building barriers, once budgeted for up to $5 million a year, has essentially been without funding since 1990. Now there’s a statewide project backlog of 500 sections of wall. Lawmakers wanted to know if future work could be allocated along congressional-district lines, but the DOT officials warned that a project in one CD might not be worthy, compared to numerous other locations and warned that it was a potential trap. Costs of the walls range from about $16 a foot for treated wood that creates a sonic bouncing effect, to $30 a foot for more sound-absorbent, 15-foot walls. So a mile-long wall could cost $2.8 million. The last neighborhood to get sound barriers was in late 2008 or early 2009 along I-95 in Branford, where the highway was – and still is – being widened. The cost of building the new walls statewide: $100 million.
Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, ranking member of the committee, had the understatement of the day. “It probably doesn’t rise up there to the level of priority,” she said.