The DOT’s project to renovate the traffic control apparatus at Suffield’s complicated intersection in the town center seems to advance in spurts. Back during a bit of last September and most of October, an “in-ground” crew from a western Connecticut contractor called NY-Conn dug in and installed circuit boxes, underground wiring, and short posts for new pedestrian switches at Mountain Road, as well as the foundations for two new steel poles. They also changed the sidewalk at the corner of the Center Green to shift the striped pedestrian crossing there (see page 16.) At that time, we were told an “above ground” crew would return in March.
But it was a mild period in late January when a crew arrived, and in a day or two they had installed the new, black, poles, one in front of the library, the other on the south-east corner at Bridge Street, each with its long arm reaching out over the intersection. That crew hung four new signal light assemblies on a new Y-shaped set of new support cables at the Bridge Street intersection. The new lights were left shrouded.
The Observer is aware of complaints about one of the prominent new poles interfering with a Mountain Road driver’s view of the library. That pole is fatter and more noticeable than the one at Bridge Street. One writer spoke if its “looming” arm (see Page 2 in this issue.) This reporter suggests dull green paint.
In early March a crew returned and installed new lights at Mountain Road, attaching them to the new arm. They attached a pipe extending vertically over the center of the intersection with a light pointing down on where a traffic policeman might stand. The pipe also supported a camera pointing up North Main Street and another piece of equipment of unknown function.
This reporter was unable to discern whether the connecting wires at each intersection are now in place. If they are, the next step would be Eversource’s turn on stage, hooking up the electrical power. Then, with one or more NY Conn visits, the old signal lights and their support cables can be removed.
In the absence of an emergency, utility infrastructure projects, like the mills of God, “grind exceeding slow.”