The Comfort of a Familiar Problem

I attended a CT Department of Transportation meeting in Norwich City Hall Thursday night, for an overview and timeline on a project set to begin in about twenty minutes (or so if I understood the assistant project engineer correctly. Hyperbole alert: deadlines appear larger in blog commentaries than they actually are as reported in news accounts). In Room 318, also known as the Council Chambers, were HUGE renderings/schematics, stretching across the entire front of the room on three of the hardest working easels this side of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. At first I thought the schematics were rendered in 1'=1' scale but, of course, that wasn't the case. It's just a really big project-the one that the State DOT is starting in a couple of days, 103-255, that will last for two years and make life for folks trying to get off and on 395 at Route 82 (and for the people who live in that area now) a lot easier.

Did I mention this is a project the CT DOT is funded to do and which has a schedule, and a contractor and an info-line phone number and an email list server for updates and lots of other stuff? The folks from the DOT mentioned it (frequently), because (I think) they were hoping to make sure none of the (about) 85 people in the audience (for a minute I thought it was a Norwich City Council meeting with sewers on the agenda because we really turn out when 'they' get started on sewers, even if "I" can't figure out who "we" think "they" is (or are. I'm never sure about the verb either) were confused or under the impression that the other project, also known as the one with ZERO money for it, was also in play.

The CT DOT people used the project numbers, 103-255 (Route 395 & Route 82 intersection) and 103-257 (Route 82 alone). I found it easier to remember Dylan's axiom that money doesn't talk, it swears (Hi Mom. I nicked myself shaving; no cause to get excited) and remembered 255 as '2$$' and 257, as 'not exactly'. After about twenty-three minutes of overview and recapping of the project management timeline and some, 'if we ever get money to pursue this part, there will be much many more meetings because all we have is a really long drawing and no bucks to go with it yet' palaver, the very sincere looking person who spoke so confidently opened the floor to questions and all anyone asked was about the project based on vapor.

Someone even older than I and sounding like he was still a little angry about the expansion of Route 82 from two lanes to four lanes "back in the Eighties", chided the fellow in the front of the room about the state's insistence on how accesses and egresses for businesses on Route 82 were the cause of sudden changes in speed and how that change in speed was the root cause behind a LOT of accidents. The CT DOT team tracked accidents on a big chart that reported from January 2004 through September 2006 there had been 445 accidents on this stretch of Route 82 with 146 injuries resulting from those accidents.

The fellow in the front of the room looked like he might have been in high school, maybe, when all that construction went on back during those not-quite-so-good-old days. While I sat there, no one had a question or a comment on the project about to begin (the one with money, 2$$). Perhaps they did after I left and it's my fault for showing up. Es tut mir leid. What I listened to was inarticulate speech of the heart on a project that might never happen. Very much, Eliza, like that hole in a bucket, but strangely reassuring because, this, is where so many of us are most comfortable.

If the International Olympic Committee makes fretting a sport (and why not? They made badminton a sport. And how cool would it be if the IOC met in an IHOP?), there will be a stampede to the medals podium the likes of which will look like the intersection of Route 395 and Route 82, at rush hour, in both directions.
I'll be your Tarzan, you'll be my Jane. I'll keep you warm and you'll keep me sane.....too late, I fear.
- bill kenny