## Facts

- Preservation and environmental organizations challenged FHWA’s approval of a Connecticut DOT project to reconstruct and enlarge the interchange connecting U.S. Route 7, Main Avenue, and the Merritt Parkway (U.S. Route 15) in Norwalk, Connecticut.
- The Merritt Parkway is a 1930s scenic roadway listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a National Scenic Byway and State Scenic Road.
- The approved project would significantly affect historic and aesthetic features of the Parkway, including bridges, ramps, ornamental parapets and piers, and the park-like landscape and vistas.
- The project sought to address serious congestion and improve interchange movements by making the interchange fully directional, and was planned to proceed in phases over several years.
- FHWA issued a Record of Decision approving the project; plaintiffs sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, asserting violations of Section 4(f) and related environmental and historic-preservation review requirements.
- The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment based on an extensive administrative record.

## Issues

1. Whether FHWA violated Section 4(f) by failing to properly evaluate feasible and prudent alternatives that would avoid or reduce the project’s use of the Merritt Parkway’s protected historic resources.
2. Whether FHWA satisfied Section 4(f)’s requirement that the project include all possible planning to minimize harm to the protected historic resource.
3. Whether FHWA’s Section 4(f) determination was arbitrary and capricious under the APA.

## Decision

- The court granted relief to plaintiffs on the Section 4(f) challenge.
- The court held FHWA’s approval did not comply with Section 4(f) and, therefore, was arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
- The court concluded FHWA failed to demonstrate (1) that no feasible and prudent avoidance alternative existed and (2) that the approved design reflected all possible planning to minimize harm.
- The court set aside (vacated) FHWA’s Section 4(f) approval and remanded to the agency for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Section 4(f) bars approval of a transportation project that uses protected parkland, refuges, or historic sites unless (1) there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the use and (2) the project includes all possible planning to minimize harm.
- Section 4(f) imposes substantive constraints that require rigorous consideration of avoidance alternatives and meaningful, record-supported harm-minimization measures for protected resources.
- Under the APA, a court reviews whether the agency examined the relevant factors and articulated a rational connection between the administrative record and its Section 4(f) determinations; conclusory or inadequately supported findings fail arbitrary-and-capricious review.
- Harm-minimization under Section 4(f) requires more than acknowledging impacts; the record must show a reasoned evaluation of design and mitigation measures and explain why additional measures are not feasible.

## Conclusion

The court set aside FHWA’s approval of a major interchange reconstruction affecting the Merritt Parkway because the agency did not adequately justify the lack of feasible and prudent avoidance alternatives or document all possible planning to minimize harm to the Parkway’s historic and scenic features, requiring remand for a lawful Section 4(f) analysis.


Merritt Parkway Conservancy v. Mineta, 424 F. Supp. 2d 396 (D. Conn. 2006)