Despite a recent show of interest by the governor and state legislature, completion of Route 11 from Salem to Interstate 95 in Waterford no longer makes the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments' list of "highest priority projects."

In a draft of the latest long-range transportation plan for the region, the five top priorities for SCCOG would become: widening Interstate 95 to three lanes to the Rhode Island border; adding lanes to the Mohegan-Pequot Bridge; expanding the regional bus system; improving Shore Line East service; and having the state Department of Transportation take over Union Station in New London.

The "Long Range Regional Transportation Plan FY 2011-2040" will get its first public hearing March 28, starting a 30-day comment period, said Richard Guggenheim, SCCOG assistant director.

Guggenheim said there hasn't been extraordinary change to the document, which must be updated every three years by federal mandate. "What has changed is the economy," he said.

That change in the economy has further delayed the completion of the Route 11 corridor, which has been stopped, started and stopped again since 1972, Guggenheim said.

The latest setback, he said, appeared within the last 16 months and is "driven by CONNDOT's conclusion that [the project] isn't financially viable, that the economy won't sustain it."

"For almost 40 years this has been a cavity in the collective tooth of southeastern Connecticut," Guggenheim said. "It's always been a highest priority. It's a major blow to the region; it's a setback."

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy spoke in January of "trying to figure out what we need to do to see if we can get Route 11 going." Malloy made completing the highway an issue during his campaign, saying it might be possible to finance work on the long-unfinished highway with tolls.

The General Assembly's Transportation Committee, on a 23-12 vote, approved a bill last Friday that would allow tolls on new state highways or highway extensions, such as the proposed completion of Route 11.

Guggenheim said tolls may appear a viable solution but could cause drivers to use different roadways to dodge the fee.

"In 1985 we had a 25-cent toll in Montville on I-395," he said. "What happened was people went out of their way to avoid that toll. The day we took the toll off, traffic plummeted on Route 32, and everyone started using I-395 again."

The $1 billion Route 11 project would require 20 percent non-federal funding, or $200 million, as well as the ability to pay debt service for the life of the bond, Guggenheim said. At this point those are formidable obstacles, he said.

While the last long-range report put Route 11 design and construction in a 2012-to-2015 window, Guggenheim said "2020 and beyond" is now more realistic.

The public hearing will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the SCCOG office, 5 Connecticut Ave., Norwich. The transportation plan is available online at www.seccog.org.

s.goldstein@theday.com

PRIORITY LIST

Highest priorities in the proposed regional transportation plan

• Capacity improvements to I-95 from Branford to the Rhode Island state line.

• Improvements to Routes 2, 2A, 32 including capacity of the Mohegan-Pequot Bridge.

• Expansion of the regional bus system to address tourism and tourism employment demand.

• Improve Shore Line East (SLE) passenger rail service between New London and New Haven.

• Preserve and enhance Union Station in New London as a regional, multi-modal, transportation facility, and improve linkage with nearby buses and ferries, with CONNDOT assuming an ownership or managerial role in the operation of the station.