Supporters of a $50 billion plan to build a 15-mile bridge between Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Kings Park, New York, say the idea is no less plausible than the Apollo moon landing.
“This isn’t the first idea that people think is a pipe dream,” said Stephen Shapiro, the Connecticut developer spearheading the proposal, at a Capitol press conference on Monday. “The moon landing was a lot more crazy back then than this bridge is now.”
Shapiro has assembled a group of supporters under the banner of a nonprofit, the Connecticut-Long Island Initiative, including current and former elected officials from both sides of the aisle.
“There’s no reason why America and Connecticut and New York together can’t do big projects,” said Bill Finch, a former Democratic state senator and one-time Bridgeport mayor. “This bridge will be an environmental juggernaut, a jobs juggernaut, and it will be the kind of thing that will put us on the map and make us all feel proud of being from the metro New York area.”
Republican state Rep. Joe Hoxha of Bristol is leading the charge for the bridge in the Connecticut House of Representatives. He said he plans to raise a bill next legislative session that would order a feasibility study for the project.
“We need to start thinking big,” Hoxha said. “Yesterday, we had a one-of-a-kind spectacle at the White House. We had the UFC event. Some people agree with it, some people disagree with it, but you can’t argue that it generated attention and it sparked a sense of patriotism in our country. An event like that brought people together.”
“I’m not comparing the two,” Hoxha said, referring to the Long Island Sound bridge proposal and the White House UFC event, “but what I’m comparing is the spirit that we need to engage in, which is to think big.”
Shapiro said $25 billion – 50% – of the project’s $50 billion price tag would be funded via private investment, with $22.5 billion coming from the federal government and $1.25 billion each being contributed by Connecticut and New York.
“I’ve had some conversations with some folks down in the city, and if the government is in on participating on this, Wall Street certainly would be, too,” Shapiro said. “Everyone would see full revitalization of their investment, and then once everyone’s paid back, this thing could generate $3 to $4 billion a year in income for both states.”
The project, which would involve tunnels and a bridge span, is similar to the longer Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia. Shapiro said he believed the project would reduce traffic on the Interstate 95 corridor and be a boon for economies on both sides of the crossing.
Shapiro noted he is not the first person to propose such a crossing.
“As early as 1938, U.S. Senator Royal Copeland proposed an 18-mile bridge linking Long Island to either Connecticut or Rhode Island,” the Connecticut-Long Island Initiative website reads. “In 1957, Charles H. Sells of the New York State Department of Public Works proposed two possible crossings, including the well-known Oyster Bay–Rye Bridge.”
“[Former New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo did a study in 2018,” Shapiro said, adding that he had invited current New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to Monday’s press conference in Hartford. (Hochul did not attend.)
Former Democratic state Rep. Jim Amann, who served as Connecticut House Speaker from 2005 to 2009, said he’s been hearing talk of a Long Island Sound crossing since he first entered the General Assembly in 1991.
“If you believe it, we can achieve it,” Amann said, adding that dozens of current Connecticut state legislators from both parties support the effort. “This would be the greatest thing that this state could have ever done for its residents.”
Shapiro said between approvals, litigation and construction, he hoped his project could be completed in the 2040s.
“I think realistically, for you and me to drive over there on a nice day in a convertible? Fifteen to 20 years ‘til you’re doing that drive,” Shapiro told a reporter.
