There's another road project going on right now, on the Post Road near the Westport/Fairfield town line, but only thing that's being stimulated is anger among the thousands of area drivers who use this major thoroughfare each day.
The milling and repaving project started just after Labor Day, then stopped, and started again. We're now told that it should be completed in the next couple of weeks, weather permitting (the work stop when it rains, and it's been raining a lot lately).
Local officials aren't in charge of the $1 million job; it's a state project unconnected to the federal stimulus program. And when the locals get in touch with someone from the state Department of Transportation who might have some knowledge about what's going on, the answer is usually that the department is overworked and they're doing the Fairfield project as quickly as possible.
That may be true. But in the meantime, residents are being inconvenienced, store owners say they're losing business, and drivers are dodging raised manholes and uneven pavement.
Adding to drivers' consternation, it was just last year that the Post Road was torn up in the same area because of a utility upgrade performed by the Connecticut Light and Power Company. The digging, milling, paving, and line-painting was just as inconvenient back then, but somehow it seems worse now because, to the rational person, it seems odd to be doing essentially the same major work twice in two years.
But we aren't about to contend that government projects bear any relation to rationality. The state transportation people say that they have a repaving schedule, that the Fairfield project came up on the schedule, and that, unfortunately, is that.
We wonder if it's on the state's schedule to pay for wheel alignments that will be needed for drivers who couldn't avoid the many raised manholes and other obstructions over the Post Road during the past two months. Don't be silly, they'll say, that's your problem.
Of course, there's also major construction work ongoing on I-95, so Fairfield and Westport drivers have the triple whammy to contend with these days - major tie-ups on the Merritt Parkway, the Connecticut Turnpike, and the Post Road.
There's some good news: most of the construction work on these three projects takes place after the evening rush hour, and ends by dawn or thereabouts. The result might be that more people are encouraged to stay home after dark, maybe entertaining themselves with a new big-screen TV. Now, that would stimulate the economy.