The Merritt Parkway (also known locally as "The Merritt") is a controlled-accessparkway in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with a small section at the northern end in New Haven County. Designed for Connecticut's Gold Coast, the parkway is known for its scenic layout, its uniquely styled signage, and the architecturally elaborate overpasses along the route. As one of the first, oldest parkways in the United States, it is designated as a National Scenic Byway and is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.[5][6] Signed as part of Route 15, it runs from the New York state line in Greenwich, where it serves to continue the Hutchinson River Parkway, to Exit 54 in Milford, where the Wilbur Cross Parkway begins. Facing bitter opposition, the project took six years to build in three different sections, with the Connecticut Department of Transportation constantly requiring additional funding due to the area's high property value. The parkway was named for U.S. Congressman Schuyler Merritt. In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called the Merritt Parkway one of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places".[7]
Trucks, buses, trailers, towed vehicles, and all vehicles 8 feet (2.4m) tall or taller are not allowed on any part of the parkway due to its low bridges, narrow lanes, and tight curve radii.
The roadway sign of the Merritt features a blue shield with white lettering, along with the foliage of Kalmia latifolia, commonly known as the mountain laurel, the state flower of Connecticut.
The Merritt is one of a handful of United States highways listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is acknowledged for the beauty of the forest through which it passes, as well as the architectural design of its overpasses; at the time of its construction, each bridge was decorated in a unique fashion so that no two bridges on the parkway looked alike.[8] Newer overpasses used at exit 39 (US 7), though, did not maintain this tradition, and as a result, exit 39 on the parkway is now spanned by several ordinary modern bridges constructed using undecorated concrete-on-steelI-beams.[9]
The parkway has two lanes in each direction. Due to its age, it was originally constructed without the merge lanes, long on-ramps, and long off-ramps that are found on modern freeways. Some entrances have perilously short and/or sharp ramps; some entrances even have stop signs, with no merge lane whatsoever; this leads to some dangerous entrances onto the highway. Most have since been modernized, with the interchange of Route 111 in Trumbull featuring Connecticut's first single-point urban interchange (SPUI). The speed limit on the parkway ranges from 50 to 55mph (80 to 90km/h). The stretch of road between exit 42 in Westport and exit 44 in Fairfield is a very long stretch, roughly 5+1⁄2 miles (8.9km) long without a single exit, referred to by local traffic reports as the "No Exit Zone"[10] or "No Man's Land".[11] An exit 43 was planned in the middle of this stretch, but was never built because it would have connected to a northerly extension of the Sherwood Island Connector, which itself was never built to that point.[12]
Vehicles 8 feet (2.4m) tall or taller in height, weighing 8,000 pounds (3,600kg) or more, towing a trailer, or having more than four wheels are not allowed on the parkway. Under extenuating circumstances, however, ConnDOT may issue permits for oversized vehicles to use the parkway.[2][3]
History
Tree canopy over the Merritt Parkway, and grassy medianAn entrance sign to the Merrit Parkway with the white-on-green and sawtooth border
The Merritt Parkway is one of the oldest scenic parkways in the United States.[13] The portion from Greenwich to Norwalk was opened on June 29, 1938.[14] The section from Norwalk to Trumbull was completed in November 1939, and in 1940, it was finished to the Housatonic River in Stratford. The parkway was named for U.S. Congressman Schuyler Merritt, who was instrumental in enacting legislation allowing the parkway to be built. The Merritt Parkway is the first leg of what later became modern Route 15. Built between 1934 and 1940, the Merritt Parkway runs for 37 miles (60km) from the New York state line in Greenwich to the Housatonic River in Stratford. It was conceived as a way to alleviate congestion on the Boston Post Road (U.S. Route 1) in Fairfield County.[15]
After the parkway fully opened in 1940, travelers commonly stopped to picnic along the side of the road.[16] The Merritt Parkway Advisory Commission (later the Merritt Parkway Advisory Committee) decided to ban horses and buggies, bicycles, pedestrians, billboards, and U-turns, while a system of horse trails along the parkway was developed, but later abandoned.[17]
To ease objections from county residents, who feared an influx of New Yorkers on their roads, in their towns, on their beaches, and through their forests, highway planners called on engineers, landscape architects, and architects to create a safe and aesthetically pleasing limited-access highway, one with exit and entrance ramps, but no intersections, that would not spoil the countryside.[18][19]
The bridges played a prominent role in the design. Architect George L. Dunkelberger designed them all. They reflected the popularity of the Art Deco style, with touches of neoclassical and modern design.[20][21][22] Some of these bridges were constructed by the Works Progress Administration.
Toll booth in 1955
Tolls were collected on the parkway at one toll plaza in Greenwich from June 21, 1939, until June 27, 1988. Two additional tolls were also located on the Wilbur Cross Parkway, in Milford and Wallingford. One of the parkway's former toll plazas is now preserved in Stratford'sBoothe Memorial Park near Exit 53, complete with still-flashing lights over each toll lane.
In April 2001, a complete reissuance of the parkway's signs was carried out, instituting a uniform white-on-green color scheme, and a sawtooth border.[23][24][25]
Services
Six rest areas/service plazas, featuring parking lots, gas stations, and convenience stores, were also built along the Merritt Parkway so that drivers would not have to exit to refuel. Pairs of plazas are located opposite each other on either side of the parkway in Fairfield (near exit 46), New Canaan (near exit 37), and Greenwich (just beyond the CT-NY state line). The northbound-side plaza in Greenwich also houses a Connecticut welcome center. The plazas were originally constructed during the parkway's days as a tolled highway, but remained even after the tolls were removed in 1988, making the parkway one of only a few toll-free highways with service plazas along its length. Between 2011 and 2015, all six of the service plazas (along with the four located further north along the Wilbur Cross Parkway) were completely renovated. The renovations preserved the original brick-and-stone façade of the buildings, but completely redesigned and modernized the interiors. The plazas now include more modern gas pumps, Alltown convenience stores, and a Dunkin' Donuts shop at each location; three of the Merritt's six plazas also include a Subway shop. Prior to the renovations, no fast-food service had previously been available at the plazas. The renovation project was completed during the summer of 2015, when the New Canaan plazas were reopened.[citation needed]
In 2013, electric-vehicle (EV) charging stations for Tesla automobiles were added to both the northbound and southbound Greenwich service plazas, with four Superchargers installed in each direction. In addition, charging for CHAdeMO-equipped EVs was added to the northbound Greenwich service plaza. The parking/charging stalls are some of the first in the U.S. to be designated "shared use" - EVs may use the stall for up to 45 minutes to charge, or internal-combustion engine vehicles may park for up to 15 minutes.[26]
Safety
Welcome sign on the northbound side in Greenwich near exit 27 on the NY-CT state border.
One of the Merritt's aesthetic features is also a potential danger to its drivers. Trees that line either side of the parkway, and often in the center median, grow branches that cover the roadway, and occasionally fall during severe weather, or with natural aging. Stretches of the parkway also lack guardrails on the right shoulders, creating a risk of tree-impact accidents if cars veer off the pavement.
In 2007, after complaints were voiced about the danger of the trees along the parkway, state officials announced they would trim and eliminate some of them more aggressively. A large, seemingly healthy tree fell on a car near exit 42 in Westport in June 2007, killing a couple from Pelham, New York. On June 23, 2011, a driver was killed in Stamford when a tree fell onto his car.[27]
A state study of fatalities on Connecticut highways showed that from 1985 to 1992, about 10 people died every three years in tree-related accidents, although no other state roadway averaged more than one in three years.
The state Department of Transportation commonly sends out work crews twice a year to drive along both sides of the parkway at 5 miles per hour (8.0km/h) in search of decrepit trees. Trees that had been scheduled to be cut down in five to 10 years would be removed sooner. Some more trees also would be removed, as the shoulder of the parkway is being widened to 8 feet (2.4m) to give drivers room to pull over.[28]
Following the 2007 and 2011 incidents, the state became more aggressive in closing the parkway in times of severe weather. The parkway was closed during Tropical Storm Irene[29] and the Halloween nor'easter in 2011, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. With each of those storms, many trees and limbs fell across the parkway. After Sandy, the state began a large effort to remove unhealthy trees, and in the process created much wider clearances between the roadside and forest.[27]
The Merritt Parkway Advisory Committee meets quarterly.[28][30]
Future
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2021)
ConnDOT is currently reviewing plans and holding community meetings over a redesign of the Merritt's interchange with U.S. Route 7 (US 7) and Main Avenue in Norwalk, exits 39 and 40.[31] The US 7 freeway was extended north to Wilton from its previous terminus in the northern part of Norwalk in 1992, passing the Merritt along the way. Due to a lack of funds, a full interchange was not built between the Merritt and US 7, which led to the lack of the important southbound Merritt to southbound US 7 connection. Not long after, ConnDOT and the federal government drew up plans for a three-level interchange that provided all connections between Main Avenue, the Merritt, and US 7. Work was supposed to begin on the Main Avenue portion in 2005 and on the US 7 and Merritt portion in 2007, but local activists filed and won a lawsuit in 2006 against ConnDOT and the federal government, alleging that not only was the proposal too expensive, but also the plans were rushed and did not take into account the beauty and historical significance of the parkway. Similar lawsuits were brought on earlier during the construction of the interchanges at Route 8 and Route 25, but both failed. The lawsuit specifically mentioned the flyover ramps between the Merritt and US 7 as a significant issue. ConnDOT and the federal government were forced to redesign their plans, with hopes of construction starting in 2009. Plans soon fell apart, and ConnDOT was forced to temporarily drop the issue.[32] Community outreach started back up in 2017, and ConnDOT is actively drawing up plans as of May 2019 with hopes of starting construction sometime between 2021 and 2024.[33]
Exit list
Like most highways in Connecticut, exits are numbered sequentially, not mile-based, though the state is gradually transitioning to milepost-based exit numbers. Exit numbers on the Merritt Parkway continue from the original sequential exits of the Hutchinson River Parkway, which ended at 27;[6]:15 since 2021, the Hutchinson River Parkway has used a mileage-based system ending at 19A.[34] King Street (NY 120A), which travels along the state border, is served by exit 27 on the Merritt Parkway and exit 19A on the Hutchinson River Parkway. Prior to 2021, because additional interchanges had been added on the New York side, exit 19A on the Hutchinson River Parkway was numbered as exit 30.
Fairfield County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 957,419, representing 26.6% of Connecticut's overall population. The closest to the center of the New York metropolitan area, the county contains four of the state's top 7 largest cities—Bridgeport (1st), Stamford (2nd), Norwalk (6th), and Danbury (7th)—whose combined population of 433,368 is nearly half the county's total population.
The Garden State Parkway (GSP) is a controlled-access toll road that stretches the north–south length of eastern New Jersey from the state's southernmost tip near Cape May north to the New York state line at Montvale. Its name refers to New Jersey's nickname, the "Garden State". The parkway has an unsigned reference number of Route 444 by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT). At its north end, the road becomes the Garden State Parkway Connector, a component of the New York State Thruway system that connects to the Thruway mainline in Ramapo.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is one of the oldest freeways built in the United States. The parkway connects Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the Arroyo Seco seasonal river. It is notable not only for being an early freeway, mostly opened in 1940, but for representing the transitional phase between early parkways and later freeways. It conformed to modern standards when it was built, but is now regarded as a narrow, outdated roadway. A 1953 extension brought the south end to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles and a connection with the rest of the freeway system.
The Hutchinson River Parkway is a controlled-access parkway in southern New York in the United States. It extends for 18.71 miles (30.11 km) from the Bruckner Interchange in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx to the New York–Connecticut state line at Rye Brook. The parkway continues south from the Bruckner Interchange as the Whitestone Expressway (Interstate 678) and north into Greenwich, Connecticut, as the Merritt Parkway. The roadway is named for the Hutchinson River, a 10-mile-long (16 km) stream in southern Westchester County that the road follows alongside. The river, in turn, was named for English colonial religious leader Anne Hutchinson.
Route 15 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Connecticut that runs 83.53 miles (134.43 km) from a connection with New York's Hutchinson River Parkway in Greenwich, Connecticut, to its northern terminus intersecting with Interstate 84 (I-84) in East Hartford, Connecticut. Route 15 consists of four distinct sections: the Merritt Parkway, the Wilbur Cross Parkway, most of the Berlin Turnpike, and part of the Wilbur Cross Highway. The unified designation was applied to these separate highways in 1948 to provide a continuous through route from New York to Massachusetts. The parkway section of Route 15 is often referred to locally as "The Merritt".
Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile (37 km) scenic parkway linking the three points of Virginia's Historic Triangle, Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. It is part of the National Park Service's Colonial National Historical Park. Virginia's official state classification for the parkway is State Route 90003. With portions built between 1930 and 1957, it links the three communities via a roadway shielded from views of commercial development. The roadway is toll-free, is free of semi trucks, and has speed limits of around 35 to 45 mph. As a National Scenic Byway and All-American Road, it is also popular with tourists due to the James River and York River ends of the parkway.
The Connecticut Turnpike is a freeway and former toll road in the U.S. state of Connecticut; it is maintained by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT). Spanning approximately 128 miles (206 km) along a generally west–east axis, its roadbed is shared with Interstate 95 (I-95) for 88 miles (142 km) from the New York state border in Greenwich to East Lyme; I-395 for 36 miles (58 km) from East Lyme to Plainfield; and State Road 695 (SR 695) for four miles (6.4 km) from Plainfield to the Rhode Island state line at U.S. Route 6 (US 6) in Killingly. The turnpike briefly runs concurrently with US 1 from Old Saybrook to Old Lyme and Route 2A from Montville to Norwich.
Route 8 is a 67.36-mile (108.41 km) state highway in Connecticut that runs north–south from Bridgeport, through Waterbury, all the way to the Massachusetts state line where it continues as Massachusetts Route 8. Most of the highway is a four-lane freeway but the northernmost 8.8 miles (14.2 km) is a two-lane surface road.
Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running in a general east–west compass direction for 111.57 miles (179.55 km) in Connecticut, from the New York state line to the Rhode Island state line. I-95 from Greenwich to East Lyme is part of the Connecticut Turnpike, during which it passes through the major cities of Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven. After leaving the turnpike in East Lyme, I-95 is known as the Jewish War Veterans Memorial Highway and passes through New London, Groton, and Mystic, before exiting the state through North Stonington at the Rhode Island border.
This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The locations of National Register properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below may be seen in an online map.
Route 25 is a 28.59-mile (46.01 km), primary state highway connecting the city of Bridgeport and the town of Brookfield in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Route 25 is a six-lane freeway from Bridgeport to northern Trumbull and a two-lane surface road the rest of the way to Brookfield.
The Milford Parkway, officially the Daniel S. Wasson Connector, is a controlled-access parkway between I-95 and U.S. Route 1 and the Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways in Milford, New Haven County, Connecticut. The highway is officially designated by the Connecticut Department of Transportation as State Road 796 but is not signed as such. As a designated scenic road, the Milford Parkway is closed to commercial vehicles.
The Charter Oak Bridge is one of the three highway bridges over the Connecticut River in Hartford, Connecticut. The twin steel stringer bridge carries the Wilbur Cross Highway over the river, connecting downtown Hartford with East Hartford.
Route 108 in the U.S. state of Connecticut, locally called Nichols Avenue and Huntington Turnpike, is a two-lane state highway that runs northerly from US 1, Boston Post Road in Stratford, through Trumbull, to Route 110 in downtown Shelton. Originally called the Farm Highway, it was laid out to the south side of Mischa Hill in Trumbull on December 7, 1696 and is considered to be the third oldest documented highway in Connecticut after the Mohegan Road in Norwich (1670) and the Boston Post Road or US 1 (1673).
The Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Bridge carries the controlled-access Merritt Parkway over the Housatonic River, between Stratford and Milford, Connecticut.
Interstate 65 (I-65) enters the US state of Kentucky from Tennessee, five miles (8.0 km) south of Franklin. It passes by the major cities of Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, and Louisville before exiting the state into Indiana.
Route 111 is a state highway in southwestern Connecticut, United States, running from the Merritt Parkway (Route 15) in Trumbull to Route 34 in Monroe. The junction with the Merritt Parkway is currently the only single-point urban interchange (SPUI) in the entire state.
U.S. Route 7 (US 7) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway which runs 78 miles (126 km) in the state of Connecticut. The route begins at Interstate 95 (I-95) in Norwalk starting out as a freeway until the Wilton town line. The route then proceeds north as a two-lane surface road through Redding and Ridgefield, where it becomes a four-lane surface road until it reaches Danbury. The route becomes an freeway again, eventually merging with I-84 for a brief period before it turns and proceeds north with US 202 in Brookfield. The freeway section terminates at an intersection with US 202 at the Fairfield–Litchfield county line next to Candlewood lake. The route then continues north as a four-lane arterial road to New Milford, where it becomes a two-lane surface road, running north to the Massachusetts border in North Canaan. US 7 was aligned to its current route around 1930, and, since then, three sections totaling around 12 miles (19 km) have been upgraded to freeway standards.
The Kaatz Icehouse was a historic ice cutting facility located on the shore of Kaatz Pond, off Whitney Road in Trumbull, Connecticut. Built in 1908, it served in this role until 1955, and was believed to be one of the last surviving structures of this type in the state. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Following its demolition in 1978, it was delisted in 2009.
1 2 Shannahan, John W. (April 17, 1991). "National Register of Historic Places in America". Retrieved March 14, 2020. National Park Service Certification I, hereby, certify that this property is: entered in the National Register [signed Beth L. Savage] 4-17-91[...]The Merritt Parkway, Connecticut's ALL-YEAR GATEWAY TO NEW ENGLAND, Welcome to our State. We want you to enjoy your stay here and to come again. [signed Raymond E. Baldwin ] Governor
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Merritt Parkway
NY 120A / Hutchinson River Parkway at the New York state line in Greenwich 
Route 15 / Wilbur Cross Parkway / Milford Parkway in Milford 
