There’s a few variations on the naming of Route 15. I drive by using the giving numerical designation (e.g. I-95, not the New England Thruway) as I think most drivers do, too. With that said, can we agree to rename Route 15 to just that and make the Merritt/Wilbur an alternate name? Thoughts?
Since it is well know (and signed as) “Merritt Parkway” and “Wilbur Cross Parkway” the Wiki indicates that should be the Primary Name used. It also becomes the “Berlin Turnpike” and “Wilbur Cross Highway” further up past Meriden.
It should have an Alt Name of “State Rte 15” though.
It should also be a “Major Highway” the entire length.
An effort was made several months ago by someone else to split and rename the western end of the Merritt as “Merritt Pkwy”. I’ve lived in the area for 13 years and drive it every day and have never heard anyone refer to it as Rte 15, it’s always “get on/take the Merritt to…”
With that said, I have marked each on ramp as “to Merrit Pkwy / SR-15 x” (x = N or S) since that is how it is usually signed on the local roads.
I actually was just going to post and see if there was any objections to changing each segment of the road from “Merritt Pkwy” to “Merritt Pkwy x” to indicate direction as it would make traffic reports more meaningful.
I think that makes sense…
I was just about to post something similar as to a N/S designation. I think we should do so to help motorist know their direction when traveling. If you’re not from the area it can be difficult especially since it’s more E/W. = )
I’ll begin to rename in my area and change for a Major Highway. However, I don’t have access, yet, to change alt names.
Ok. I’ll take care of that and changing to a Major Hwy and will do up to Fairfield where my AM privileges run out. 
I’ll propose the same changes in the NY forum for the Hutch.
That is true. The person who did the renaming before asked me if the directions were signed and when I told him N/S he though I was crazy. :lol:
I believe the reason it’s N/S is because it’s sort of an extension of the Hutch and that is N/S and would be confusing to change directions in the middle of the road.
Alt Names in CT is a total mess (on most Freeways, Major and Minor Highways)… I’ve been holding off on starting that project for a few reasons…
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Alt Names are only available in Cartouche (the old editor) and not that easy to use.
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The Road Type project I’m in the middle of is a much higher priority (as it helps routing, and cleans up a lot of crap on the map as I go town by town, etc)
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They keep saying we’re going to be getting a better shield generation system “soon”, so I don’t want to do a bunch of work and have it be wrong…
Just like I-95…
They are a total mess in NY too. There are so many roads in Westchester that need fixing as they are generally referred to by number except for a few but I’ve been holding off as well so I or someone else doesn’t have to go back and fix everything.
At least with I-95 there is some precedent/reason with two digit odd numbered interstates running N/S.
And it runs N/S from Florida to Maine, only in CT does it go W/E
I know the CSP don’t refer to 95 as N/W over the radio… since it’s not!
Andy, it looks like you locked this section of the Wilbur Cross:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=3&lat=41.53699&lon=-72.76785&layers=BFTFTTTTTTFTTTTTTTTTFT&segments=9044434
Can you unlock it?
I made the name change in that area… It spend a lot of time getting the ramps in that area named, routed & leveled correctly. Both I-91 & the Wilbur Cross are considered high-value roads, and as such should be locked as according to current locking rules - but only once they are triple checked and verified.
I didn’t want to start a new thread but I picked up a book on the Merritt Parkway this weekend. It’s very interesting as it covers it’s construction as well as some changes over the years. I love seeing the old photos with the crisp white concrete road deck and bridge structures and now guard rails! I really hope they replace all the rails with the timber like that have done at the western end. It goes more with what was planned at the time.
One tidbit I didn’t know is that it was actually planned in two phases. A 300’ right of way was purchased and the current parkway was built on the northern 150’ of it. Some of the overpasses aren’t symmetrical on each side because of the planned phase 2 which would mirror the already completed section. Because of this phased approach, it’s why the road has short sections of straight with tight radius turns connecting them. If they had used all 300’ for a non-phased construction they could of used longer sweeping curves which was the new design style coming in at the time.
There was also some debate or feud over the narrowing of the lanes at over/under passess, which is why some of the ones built towards the end of construction have a full width center island.
One thing I noticed in the photos is that Exit 36 (and entrance) on the EB side was originally on the east side of 106, but now it’s located on the west side (i.e. you exit before you drive over the road). I think there is overflow parking for Talmage Hill Station where the photos originally show the ramps which was probably the reason for the move.
Another tidbit is there used to be an Exit 30, but it closed before 1947 IIRC. If you look at arial images between 20 and 31 you can still seen where Butternut Rd would of intersected the Parkway. There was a planned Exit 32 but it was never built.
The (then) US-7 interchange in Norwalk was the first cloverleaf (although non-symmetrical) in the state. Now of course US-7 was realigned with the new extension built to the west of that section of road.
There is one photo at the end of the book that was used for the cover of a Gulf (the original station son the parkway) exit map. Although I can’t figure out what 2 exits it’s a photo of.
That’s good stuff. What’s the name of the book? I’d like to check out the photographs.
Whoops, I got excited writing about it I forgot to give it’s name. :lol:
It’s called “Travelling the Merritt Parkway”. Here is a link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Merritt-Parkway-Images-America/dp/0738562742/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348496326&sr=8-2&keywords=merritt+parkway
The publisher has other historic books for roads and towns of which I have a couple of. Always neat to learn of history of places I drive or live.
It’s an easy read and I went through the hole thing in a couple of hours Sat night. I drive a portion of the Merritt every day so it was particularly interesting to me. One of these days I’m going to try and locate the old abandoned exit 30 roads and take some photos.
One other neat thing to see is the old “slippery bridge” (who knew it was called the Housatonic River Viaduct) with empty land behind it before Sikorsky was built.
“Slippery Bridge”? Don’t you mean “Singing Bridge”?
I never heard it called that before. I got slippery bridge from my great uncle who worked at Sikorsky. I suspect it had a lot of different names most of which can’t be repeated here.