Column: Mashantucket casino road to nowhere

Wednesday, July 1, 2009  

"When the Mohegan Indians first started building their casino in the late 1990s, G. Michael Brown, the tough New Jersey lawyer who helped mastermind the development of Foxwoods for the Mashantucket Pequots, scoffed at plans for a major new road linking Mohegan Sun to Route 2A.

Brown called it, with no small amount of derision, the Mohegans' $30 million driveway.

In those days, when the market was still sopping up what seemed like an endless supply of new gambling dollars, the Pequots wouldn't spend $30 million on building anything that didn't house more slot machines.

The race was on.

I couldn't help but think, when taking the Pequots' new Route 2 bypass for a test spin this week, up and over and right past Foxwoods, at 50 mph, that it was too bad Brown wasn't around to dissuade the tribe from this $67 million boondoggle.

While the Mohegans' original road project cleverly linked their casino to the interstate system - from New York or Boston directly to Mohegan Sun, without a stoplight - the Pequots' new four-lane highway only connects at either end to the old two-lane Route 2.

Its best use seems to be to hurry traffic right on by the resort.

It does this pretty well."

Get the Story:
David Collins: Pequots Dedicate Highway To Nowhere (The New London Day 7/1)