Safety is top priority
The arrival of spring also marks the unofficial start of construction season for the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT). Soon, the public will start seeing more work occurring on and around Connecticut roadways. Our staff of more than 3,200 live and work in communities across the state, and our friends and family members travel on the roads we maintain. We take the responsibility of safety seriously, and it is at the heart of everything we do.
Our actions, from roadway reconstruction, safety improvements, bridge repairs, and trail projects are planned, designed, and constructed with this mindset of serving our communities. These projects and maintaining our roadways also oftentimes must include selectively cutting down trees. The ongoing challenges created by invasive species, plant diseases, and a changing climate pose a potential life safety risk to anyone traveling in Connecticut. I read the emails and listen to the voicemails from residents who are unhappy that we remove trees. However, every year dozens of lives are lost because a tree fell onto the roadway, or a vehicle left the road and crashed into a tree. This is why we are addressing safety hazards, like trees, that have the potential to cause serious injury and death on our roadways.
CTDOT employs Connecticut Licensed Arborists, as well as Certified Tree Wardens, who are extensively trained in identifying hazardous trees, including those that are dead, dying, decaying, or structurally compromised. They are an integral part of establishing and prioritizing vegetation management strategies along our state roadways. This includes clearing away of trees that have intruded into the clear zones of our highways and grown over the years.
Our roadway infrastructure was originally built with ample safe space between roads and trees, but due to a lack of sustained funding these areas became overgrown
State workers cut down a tree on the Merritt Parkway on the Milford / Orange border.
and hazardous. However, in 2018, the legislature increased funding to the CTDOT specifically to perform this much-needed work. These investments enabled us to increase our vegetation management program, and the data suggests a clear downward trend in the numbers of fatalities and crashes resulting from a fallen tree or standing trees on the side of the road. Since investing in improved vegetation management programs, crashes involving trees on state-managed roads have plummeted by more than 17%.
Fatalities resulting from tree-related crashes have also seen a significant decline. Before this investment, an average of 22 lives were tragically lost annually on state roads due to these crashes. Post-investment, that number has dropped to an average of 14, a 36% reduction in fatalities. Clearly what we have been doing the past six years is working.
While I share these stats, I promise you that all of us at the CTDOT never lose sight that each number represents a person. We work every day to prevent crashes because we don’t want to lose any member of the Connecticut community.
Safety and environmental sustainability are not in conflict. While we are strategically addressing unsafe trees, we are also planting smaller native and healthy trees, bushes, and shrubs that beautify the landscape in areas where they do not pose a threat to the traveler. We’re also investing in pollinator habitats along the highways. Our Pollinator Program launched in 2017 with eight conservation areas, and now we have 126 areas spanning more than 208 acres of state property.
CTDOT is hard at work ensuring EV infrastructure is accessible along highways and state routes so there is convenient charging access no matter where someone is traveling. We also partnered with the Department of Motor Vehicles to develop a map of the nearly 400 charging stations so residents know exactly where they are.
Connecticut is committed to doing its part to improve air quality and reduce emissions with investments that improve multimodal choices. Expanding the public transportation network by offering super-express trains, adding weekend and evening bus routes, launching new on-demand microtransit services, and commuter shuttles to major employers, are just some ways to achieve those goals. CTDOT is continuing to provide grants to cities and towns to build bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks so people can ditch their cars and feel safe walking and cycling in their communities.
Connecticut stands at the forefront of safeguarding motorists and travelers from both natural and man-made hazards, while maintaining a strong commitment to environmental sustainability. CTDOT will continue a balanced, informed approach to save lives affected both by climate change and unsafe roadways.
I don’t think anything Joe Lieberman ever said surprised me more than when he offered an extemporaneous film review on Aug. 27, 2001.
“I just saw a terrific movie, ‘The Princess Diaries,’ ” said Lieberman, then in his third of four terms as a U.S. senator.
This was Lieberman’s icebreaker to kick off an editorial board session with the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. In the days of “The Fast and the Furious,” “American Pie 2” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” Lieberman gushed about the only G-rated flick to hit screens that summer. For me, it felt like an SNL skit mocking Lieberman’s “golly, gee” rep, yet he delivered it in that voice that was flatter and drier than Steven Wright doing standup in Death Valley.
Such tones seemed more appropriate as he went on to talk about issues such as stem cell research and encouraging more efficient computer use in government operations. But it took a moment for me to realize he was earnest in wanting to champion the wholesome fluff of “Princess Diaries.” This was, after all, the senator who fought for a ratings system for video games and showed that it really is OK to wag a finger at a sitting president for repulsive moral behavior, even if he is in your own party.
That conversation was memorable for something else. It took place just nine months after the endless 2000 presidential election was finally settled, preventing Lieberman from becoming vice president. George W. Bush had only been in office for eight months, but Lieberman expressed disappointment because he expected Bush to take a more centrist direction.
“He has moved to the right,” Lieberman said of Bush. “His campaign … was mostly cosmetic.”
Fifteen days later, the world changed on 9/11. So did the legacy of Joe Lieberman, who died Wednesday at age 82.
Lieberman was, yes, the prince among Connecticut Democrats in the 1990s. But he rewrote his own diary after 9/11. His is a story with two acts, and the arc of his political reputation could not bend more sharply.
When rumors started circulating in summer of 2000 that Lieberman was on Al Gore’s short list of vice presidential running mates, those of us in the newsroom thought it would have a short-lived presence on the news cycle. We got caught up in the fever when it became a reality. There was a spirited newsroom debate over the headline to use for the edition published on the day Lieberman
returned to his hometown of Stamford. As city editor, I opposed it as being too fawning, but given that a hometown guy had a chance to become vice president, we went with massive type trumpeting that “He’s coming home.”
Gore and Lieberman made the first joint road stop of their campaign in Stamford with an event at the Italian Center that was broadcast on the likes of CNN. When Lieberman spoke at the rally, he explained that after getting off Air Force Two and opening the door of his ride, he saw a copy of the Advocate on the seat. The headline made him choke up. The photo of him holding up the paper at the rally still hangs in the Advocate office.
The Advocate published an “Extra” edition that was handed out at the rally. There would be only one more Extra, on Sept. 11, 2001.
Perhaps the aftermath of 9/11 would have unfolded differently in a Gore/ Lieberman administration. But that’s when Lieberman’s reputation pivoted from cerulean liberal to scarlet hawk.
Just a few years later, Lieberman’s run for president didn’t even get support from Gore.
His rep suffered even harsher scars, as he became the turncoat of the Democratic Party. It wasn’t just because of the war in Iraq. After losing to unknown Ned Lamont in the 2006 U.S. Senate Democratic primary, Lieberman insisted on staying on the ballot as a third party candidate, which succeeded because he drew support from the GOP. Two years later he backed his Republican bro John McCain over that upstart Barack Obama and was nearly tapped to be McCain’s running mate.
During a 2020 interview with Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded troops in Iraq, he told me, “Joe Lieberman in my view is a hero. He truly is an extraordinary American. Talk about somebody who treats people with dignity and respect — he is the epitome of that.”
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Which is why the tributes to Lieberman in the aftermath of his death reflect the prince and pariah of the Democratic Party.
“Joe Lieberman and I didn’t always see eye-toeye,” (Obama).
“While we may have had political differences …” (U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1 District).
“Although we often disagreed on the issues …,” (U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro, D-3 District).
“While we did not always agree …” (U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4 District).
Republicans have been less guarded, applauding Lieberman’s bipartisanship. But the bridges Lieberman crossed had a way of collapsing behind him.
The New York Times marked Lieberman’s death with a front page headline short-handing him as a “symbol of rectitude in the Senate.” We could probably use more rectitude in the Senate. We would use it anywhere.
It reminded me of my last substantial conversation with Lieberman, when we talked in 2020 about his boyhood in Stamford. Vintage newspaper clips report on young Joe running for a 45-yard touchdown and nailing all eight of his free throws in a basketball game. We were chatting that day about the death of Bobby Kennedy, the Advocate’s longtime sports editor. Bobby dad was Stamford’s mayor and the first NBA commissioner. At age 78, Lieberman still called his boyhood friend’s father “Mr. Kennedy,” like he was a kid down the block.
He repeatedly compared his high school experiences to the TV show “Happy Days.” That didn’t surprise me, given the “Princess Diary” review. But it made me think there was never really a before and after to Joe Lieberman. We may have seen him differently, but he never really changed. He was always left. He was always right.