The "Ring Road" was a proposed urban roadway circa 1960s to encircle downtown New Haven, leading from the Trumbull Street interchange at I-91 around to Route 34 or further south.
There's little information on this road compared to other projects, such as Route 34 or the East Rock Connector. The Ring Road would have had a mixed profile, part expressway and part arterial road.
Aerial photos like this sample used to be available at Mapquest.com.
As highway information citations go, my first source for the Ring Road stands out: it's a Black Panthers pamphlet from 1970, criticizing Yale, New Haven officials and business interests.
The text discusses the Oak Street Connector (Route 34) and its role in displacing Oak Street ("the city's worst slum") and separating black neighborhoods from the college and downtown. Then:
This loop, part expressway and part boulevard, will start from the I-91 Trumbull Street exit, an engineering disaster, circle behind the Grove Street Cemetery and Payne-Whitney gym and go down Howe and Dwight to the turnpike connector, which is being extended, and then circle beyond the medical school-hospital complex and join State Street, by then a six-lane road. Early plans for this road forsaw displacing 36 families, moving 31 businesses, and spending $1.6 million for land acquisition (of which half a million would pay for Yale property).
In 1942, Yale professor Maurice Rotival wrote an urban traffic plan for New Haven that included several roads, including Route 34, a highway through East Rock, and "several ring roads" to speed motorists on their way. He updated his plan in 1953. One of these Ring Roads might have been the one we're discussing now. His papers are archived at Yale; I haven't seen them yet.
In mid-1966, the city and Yale were advocating a circumferential road connecting the Trumbull Street interchange with Dwight and Howe streets (near Route 34) by way of a "below level highway" through the campus area.
To satisfy some Yale interests that opposed the road, New Haven Mayor Richard C. Lee agreed to place the Trumbull Street portion in a tunnel.
By late 1968, the Ring Road seemed to be on the wane. In September 1968, state highway department directory David S. Johnson explained that the "ring road", supported by the city, had not been taken into consideration when designing the Route 34 extension. But the city's official position at the time was that there were "no drawn plans" for the ring road.
A December 1968 New Haven Register editorial stated: "We agree that the so-called Ring Road, designed to connect the Oak Street Connector with the Trumbull Street ramp of I-91 should be abandoned."
In both New Haven Register articles, the Ring Road was enclosed in quotation marks, or prefaced with "so-called", or both -- doing no favors to the proposal's credibility.
I don't have conception or cancellation dates for the Ring Road yet. I haven't seen a route number associated with the proposal, but Route 29 and the [Richard C.] Lee Highway would be a clever in-joke for southern visitors.
In the late 1990s, developers were planning a $492 million shopping mall in New Haven's Long Wharf district. Plans included modifying several ramps on Route 34 and I-91, as well as the construction of Galleria Drive, described as a "ring road" around the mall. This is not related to the 1960s plan.
As of late 2002, the shopping mall plan has stalled, but the city revived plans for the new "ring road", which would "would run behind Long Wharf's industrial park, from the intersection of Sargent and Long Wharf drives to Brewery Street near the city's main post office."
Updated Sept 2, 2004
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Markers in the left margin for present-day routes are courtesy of Barry L. Camp.
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