Oak Street Connector/Route 34
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The Oak Street Connector is a divided-highway freeway section of CT Route 34 that is located in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. Its total length is one mile as calculated from its starting intersection with Interstate 95 and its western terminus at York Street/the Air Rights parking garage.
As originally planned in 1957, the Connector was supposed to extend as a full expressway extending ten miles westward from New Haven to the town of Derby, where it would intersect with CT-8. The current connector section was completed in 1959. The entire project was conceived with a dual purpose: to 1) aid in the urban renewal of New Haven's decayed downtown and to 2) facilitate the east-west flow of traffic between New Haven and its growing western suburbs. Due to its limited completion, only the first goal can be said to have been achieved. Other plans for the highway to be extended into a larger expressway from New Haven to Peekskill, New York were shelved in the mid-1970s.
Currently, the Connecticut Department of Transportation is engaged in a redesign of the entire Interstate 95/91/Oak Street Connector interchange. It is estimated that the Connector handles almost 70,000 vehicles each day.