The Merritt Parkway - The Gateway to New England - New Canaan, Connecticut
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N 41° 07.217 W 073° 28.834
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"The Merritt Parkway - The Gateway to New England" history marker is at the Merritt Parkway/Route 15 (southbound) Service Plaza in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Waymark Code: WM166K2
Location: Connecticut, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2022
Views: 2
"The Merritt Parkway - The Gateway to New England" history marker is at the
Route 15 (southbound) Service Plaza in New Canaan, Connecticut, between Exits 38 and 37 on the Merritt Parkway. An account of the road's origin fills the left quarter of a horizontal signboard. It's right quarter lists amenities of the small service center; the center is filled by a state road map above a narrow horizontal map section highlighting various bridges along the route. The narrative reads:
The Merritt Parkway
The Gateway to New England
Constructed to relieve traffic from the congested Boston Post Road, the Merritt Parkway quickly became one of America's premiere roads celebrated for its engineering and beauty. The first segment of the Parkway opened in 1938 as Connecticut's first divided-lane, limited-access highway -- free of trucks and advertising.
Design
The Merritt was designed solely by the Connecticut Highway Department.
Construction of the Parkway began in 1934 with the challenge of building an east-west road that traversed the north-south natural ridges and river valleys. To avoid a drive that felt like a roller coaster, extensive blasting of ridge tops and filling of valleys was required. Bridge construction and paving operations continued until the Parkway was completed in 1940, with 2,000 workers and 14 private companies involved in the construction activities.
Bridges
There were 72 original bridges designed by George Dunkelberger, an architect and staff member of the Connecticut Highway Department. Each bridge is unique, with distinctive architectural styles from Art Deco to Art Moderne. The majority of bridges were made of concrete to reduce the cost of construction. Dunkelberger decorated the bridges with sculptures, added plants and animals on the abutments, and tinted the concrete, to the delight of motorists.
Landscape
Connecticut Highway Department landscape architect Weld Thayer Chase carefully designed a naturalistic landscape to re-establish the beauty of the existing countryside. Chase studied the landscape prior to construction noting the location of native plants, often storing existing plants to be replanted and marking trees to remain during construction. Additionally, 70,000 trees and shrubs were purchased and thousands more were donated by garden clubs and civic organizations. Chase said, "My aim was to heal the landscape, so Dame Nature could pull it all together in time." The Merritt Parkway's significance has been recognized by its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, its designation as a State Scenic Road and a National Scenic Byway.
Since 2002, the Merritt Parkway Conservancy has been working
in partnership with other stakeholders to revitalize and celebrate
the Merritt Parkway. Io learn more about the Conservancy and this
remarkable road, please visit www.merrittparkway.org.
Driver Commentary: Real-world conditions today can be less than the halcyon visions of the designers of yesteryear. Traffic volume, population increase, and commercial growth has exploded since 1934, and, though the layout of the Merritt is pleasant and low bridges prohibit buses and commercial trucks, driving it as an alternative to I-95, the primary east-west interstate connecting New England and New York City, can be wearisome. The 37.5-mile road is regularly fully congested, especially at peak travel times, and certainly along segments of blind hills or curves in general. (It took me nearly an hour and a half of bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic to traverse its length the day after I snapped the accompanying photos. Unfortunately, that is typical, but "faster" than the parallel section of I-95 to the south for this threshold/bottleneck corridor...)