‘End in Sight?’ Utilities Say New Canaan Rd. Construction will Push Into 2026 as Residents Blast Detours, Bridge Structure, Communication

Residents who live along New Canaan Rd./Rte. 106 unloaded three years of frustration over rolling detours, rough pavement, an industrial-looking pipe bridge and more during an at-times tense community forum with executives from Eversource/Yankee Gas and Aquarion Water Company.

The meeting, hosted by State Reps. Savet Constantine (Wilton) and Lucy Dathan (New Canaan), was held Wednesday evening, Oct. 8, for residents who wanted more information about the multi-year road construction project to hear directly from utility officials.

Work began on the project in 2022, and initially, the companies had anticipated that the project would take one year, as GOOD Morning Wilton reported at the time.

Wednesday night officials said key pieces of the project are now in place but full restoration won’t come until sometime during the 2026 paving season, between April and November next year.

For the most part, the two utility companies coordinated work on their respective projects — Eversource’s installation of a new, 16-inch steel gas main pipe, and Aquarion’s construction of a new 48-inch water main — along the 3.6 miles of Rte. 106 connecting Wilton and New Canaan.

Because Rte. 106 is a state road, much of how and when the work could be performed was dictated by the CT Department of Transportation (DOT), including the depth of the pipe installation — 6 feet deep for the gas line and 9 feet for the water main.

On the gas side, Eversource project manager Ken Zembrzuski said he had good news: “Good news, all gas main installation in Wilton is complete.” In New Canaan, he said, there is “approximately 325 feet remaining to install,” with hopes to finish “the end of next week.” Next spring, Eversource will have to do final tie-ins that “gas up” the line, which Zembrzuski said would involve “small roadway excavations at each end of the 3.6 mile project, adding “that work next year is going to take three to four days.”

Aquarion Project Manager Dennis Fields said that the work the companies are doing right now has to be shut down no later than Nov. 15, when paving season ends. By then, they’ll have had to lay down a one-inch “winter cap” over the entire 3.6 miles as a temporary smooth layer of road for winter into spring.

For the eventual last stretch, Fields said full-depth roadway restoration and repaving the road to CT-DOT specifications is targeted during the 2026 paving season, and he estimated it will take three months to complete.

“We hope that we can get [paving] started in late April, early May, which is ideal, but we can’t promise,” Fields said, explaining it will depend on contractor scheduling and CT-DOT permit approval.

Eversource VP of Engineering Daniel Lawrence — the number-three at the company — was also at the meeting. “We would love to do it earlier in the year. But we just can’t promise that,” he said.

“We are the ones who have been hurt.”

The project has been a significant disruption for neighboring residents, especially as the crews hopscotched back and forth between multiple sections of New Canaan Rd., tearing up roadway, repaving it, only to tear it up again. In the course of the almost four years since crews first broke ground, the project has forced convoluted detours through the surrounding residential area’s winding streets, created a terribly uneven road surface, caused a water main break and more.

Multiple residents pressed hard on what they called poor execution and poor communication.

Trails End Rd. resident Jerry Sprole put the utility representatives on the spot.

“You guys are public companies. You’re not doing this for the goodness of Wilton or anything else. You’re doing it for your shareholders, okay? And I’m very cynical about the long term aspects, because we have been the ones who have been hurt, the people living up and down Route 106, what’s in it for us?” Sprole asked, before answering his own question: “Nothing.”

Ryan Murphy was another resident who spoke up. “The bottom line is, execution has really been terrible. Road closures have not followed the schedule that was sent to us. When the roads are repaved, they’re impossible to traverse because they’re extremely bumpy. There’s potholes everywhere,” he said.

Then he told a second story: “My wife was giving birth, and I was rerouted around the entire New Canaan back roads, some of which are one way, crossing bridges to get to Stanford Hospital,” he recalled, adding, “Moving forward, how is this going to improve?”

Wilton resident Eric Fleischer said the problems weren’t just about traffic.

“It’s low water pressure. It’s dirty ground water and trying to reach out to all of you folks, we’re getting nowhere… We’ve been complaining about it for a long time. We have to go out and buy a pressure machine, which is money out of our pocket. We have water main breaks, we have groundwater, so we have to go out and buy a filter, which is $3,600 …then one month later, the filter has to be replaced because it’s so dirty,” Fleischer said. “So there are real implications to the people who
live here.

Editor’s note: Rep. Savet Constantine said one of the marketing officials at the meeting later told her that a partial answer to the question, “What’s in it for Wilton?” is tax revenue the town collects from the utilities. Following the meeting, Constantine checked with Wilton Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi, who told her that the total land in Wilton owned by utilities has an assessed value of $56.4 million, which roughly translates to $1.4 million in tax payments to the town — part of which is the Rt 106 land assessment.

Controversial Bridge Pipe

The changes to the stone bridge crossing the Silvermine River at the Wilton-New Canaan border, near Valley Rd., drew the sharpest aesthetic criticism. What once was an unobtrusive vine-covered wooden cover for a smaller 24-inch water pipe running adjacent to the bridge’s north side, now was a sizable steel structure rising over the bridge wall’s height, carrying both the 42-inch water main and the 16-inch gas line.

Wilton resident Jim McCorry compared it to a “horizontal oil rig above the level of the bridge.”

He noted that several bridges spanning the Silvermine River have been built within the last 10-15 years, clad in stone to make them look like they belong in the community.

“This structure appears as though it should be crossing the Gowanus Canal, not Silvermine River. I just find it hard to believe that… there’s not some other way to support that,” he said.

Aquarion’s team replied the metal superstructure and its position and elevation were mandated by the state for weight and clearance: “It’s a lot of weight. It’s 42-inch pipe filled with water… And you can’t put it next to the bridge, because that’s the DOT right-of-way… So DOT is the one that permits.”

They also said a landscape architect will be implementing new plantings to help cover and camouflage the new structure, with predictions that the vines will once again grow enough to help mask it.

Public Safety

Also at the meeting were Wilton Police Chief Tom Conlan and Lt. Dave Hartman, who said they have worked closely with Eversource and Aquarion through the whole project. Conlan said the road construction project has been frustrating for his department as well.

“I know you guys are probably first in line in wanting the project done. We’re second because obviously it affects our officers out there. We have them doing selective enforcement in areas of Old King’s, Borglum and Old Boston [roads] to try and deter the traffic,” he explained of trying to manage the detours.

“Unfortunately, in this day and age with Mapquest and Waze, people find a way to get around this, and it’s still bringing it through some of our residential roadways. We put officers out there in peak hours to try and deter speeding and aggressive driving behavior, but hopefully it sounds like we’re getting to the end of this,” Conlan added. “We want this project over as much as you do.”

Hartman, who is in charge of the department’s traffic unit, said that WPD has kept in frequent contact with Wilton Fire and Wilton Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

“There were sections of the roadway which were very narrow, and [the crews] were in the road and took a good portion of the travel lane. On those days, we stayed in close contact with ambulance and fire so that if there was an emergency, they knew how to get to any of the residents’ houses on those specific days,” Hartman said.

Cost, Hookups, and the State’s Marketing Ban

Residents pressed the question of who benefits and at what price. “I have a neighbor … that was given an astronomical quote to hook into natural gas — $50,000,” one woman said.

Eversource officials representing the communication and marketing departments were on hand. “Each house would have a different cost,” one said. “It’s how far you’re from the street to your house and how much gas you’d be using.”

The company representatives explained that the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) mandates that Eversource and Aquarion cannot “market” new service lines directly to homeowners, so they are hampered in alerting them to the opportunities to connect. They also said a previous expansion program with different cost recovery rules “ended in 2024… we have to now go back to everybody is on a standard rate over a 15-year projection… We’re just following the rules.”

Constantine and Dathan, along with Wilton First Selectman Toni Boucher and New Canaan’s First Selectwoman Dionna Carlson, said they will work with the utilities to make sure residents who may want to connect before final paving are notified in time. As much as residents want the project to be completed, there’s a limited window to get connected to the gas line once work begins again next spring. DOT typically imposes a five-year road-opening moratorium after reconstruction is finished, so once the road is fully repaved, DOT won’t allow any new cuts to the road until after that period.

What’s Next

Constantine asked the utility officials to provide better ways for the neighbors to get information, either with a specific contact to call about traffic issues, water quality, and hookup questions, while the project — and the detours — wind toward the finish line.

She and Dathan said they spent hours with the state DOT this week to press for smoother coordination and clearer permits there as well. Both state representatives said they would push for clearer schedules and broader notification lists once 2026 DOT permits and contractor dates firm up.

“I think we just need work on communication going forward. I wish we had been doing this a long time [ago],” Constantine said of the evening’s dialog. “But you know, it’s good that it’s finally getting it done, particularly for people to find out [how] to hook up before the paving happens.”

“We can plan over from now through the spring so everyone’s on board,” Dathan said. “Everyone knows what’s going on at least going forward.”

For now, once the winter cap is paved and work stops for the winter, travel should smooth somewhat until spring. But as one resident muttered on the way out, “It’s been years already. We’ll believe ‘the end in sight’ when we see the new pavement.”