The construction site for the new Tweed New Haven Regional Airport parking lot is seen Thursday.
Peter Hvizdak — NEW HAVEN Register
NEW HAVEN -- Tweed New Haven Regional Airport has begun work to rebuild the airport’s driveways, parking lots and taxi pick-up area as part of a $1.31 million project funded by the state and federal governments.
The work will include parking spaces closer to the airport terminal, a new walkway from the parking lot to the terminal and better drainage and lighting, said Tim Larson, executive director of the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority.
It also will simplify the currently tangled, “pretzel” vehicle circulation pattern entering and exiting the airport, he said.
“The pretzel that we had” will now be “a circular configuration with a drop-off area,” Larson said. “We make it a lot more convenient for passengers and it improves the flow of traffic through the airport.”
In the new design, “effectively, we’ve consolidated the metered lot and the short-term lot into one 90-space parking lot,” he said.
The project, being done by Waters Construction Co. Inc. of Bridgeport, is expected to be complete by spring 2014, airport officials said.
It is funded with about $400,000 from the Federal Aviation Administration, with the balance coming from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, Larson said.
“We’re excited about it,” Larson said. “It’s been a long time that this has been looked at.”
Tweed is administered by the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority and managed by Avports, a private company hired by the authority.
The authority hired Dewberry Engineers Inc., which has a branch office in New Haven, as its engineering consultant. Dewberry’s design simplifies the current access drive “pretzel” to a one-way ring road, Larson said.
Parking fares will be unified with the installation of all-new fare collection equipment.
While the work is going on, the airport will continue normal passenger operations, Larson said. “We put a fence line and a pedestrian walkway along the eastern side of the construction area ... so that pedestrians wouldn’t be walking through the construction area,” Larson said.
The airport’s terminal drop-off area, handicapped parking and access to the taxi queue and rental car lot also will be maintained throughout the work.
When the work is done, pedestrians will have a more direct route to the terminal from the parking areas via a slightly raised walkway, Larson said.
Source: http://www.nhregister.com
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