The Route 11 Greenway Authority was created by the state legislature in 2000 as a committee designated with the responsibility of purchasing land on either side of the completed Route 11 to be preserved as hiking and biking trails and open space. As of 2010, the Authority still held monthly meetings and the funds from the State of Connecticut still existed to purchase land for the Greenway, despite the near certainty the expressway itself would never be completed. The Authority did not have the power of eminent domain. The cross-section profile for the Route 11 Greenway would have been similar to that of the Route 8 expressway through the Naugatuck State Forest between Beacon Falls and Naugatuck. Extension cancelled On October 19, 2016, the Federal Highway Administration published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the withdrawal of the Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, that effectively ceased any further work on the Route 11 extension. The major issues cited in the FHWA and ConnDOT abandoning the Route 11 extension include: opposition from the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA has long opposed the extension of the Route 11 freeway, and would not approve any "build" alternative), the prohibitive cost and lack of funding for the extension, and the discovery of Native American and colonial-era archaeological sites along the route that could not be avoided. Local officials who have long supported completing Route 11 conceded that spot improvements to the Route 85 corridor could be done more quickly and at a much lower cost than extending Route 11 to I-95. Unused bridges, roadbed and ramps The northernmost mile (1.6 km) of the Route 11 extension would have been built more to Interstate standards as it transitioned between the Greenway profile and the profile of the existing segment ending at Exit 4 in Salem. When Route 11 opened to its present-day terminus at Route 82, crews had cleared and graded the roadbed for about a mile beyond Route 82 for the anticipated extension south, including two deep rock cuts and a pair of unused bridges over Route 82 just past present terminus. Two "ghost ramps" built during the 1970s would have been paved as the new roadway was built, creating full diamond interchange at Exit 4. The bridges, ramps, and rock cuts, as well as unused storm drains, were left behind when work stopped on Route 11 in 1972.