2017-05-20 01:35:31
State of Disrepair
OUR ROADS ARE AMONG THE WORST IN THE NATION. HUNDREDS OF OUR BRIDGES ARE IN POOR CONDITION. BUT HOW DO WE FIX OUR TRANSIT SYSTEM WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK?
BY GARY STOLLER
Hitting bump aft er bump, cars and trucks are repeatedly jolted as they head east on Interstate 84 between Brookfield’s Exit 9 and Newtown’s Exit 10.
The pavement on this stretch of highway — rated in “fair” condition by the state Department of Transportation is cracked, pockmarked and sunken.
Many Connecticut motorists bemoan the blacktop conditions on numerous other areas of the state’s roads, which are ranked by various organizations as some of the worst in the nation.
“Connecticut’s people suffer every day in traffic and endure potentially dangerous conditions because our roads, bridges and highways are in disrepair,” says Carol Platt Liebau, the president of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Hartford.
Three other organizations — the national transportation research group TRIP, the Reason Foundation think tank and the American Society of Civil Engineers — analyzed federal government data and concluded in separate studies that nearly all states’ roads are in better condition than those in Connecticut.
Connecticut “clearly has a significantly higher share of poor roads” than other states, says Rocky Moretti, TRIP’s director of policy and research.
Pavement in poor condition has “advanced deterioration” and can cause additional wear or damage to vehicle suspensions, wheels and tires, the Federal Highway Administration says. It can also cause delays, the agency says, when vehicles slow for potholes or rough surfaces, affect vehicles’ stopping ability and maneuverability, and lead to accidents.
According to TRIP, which is based in Washington, 57 percent of Connecticut’s major roads are in poor condition, and driving on roads in need of repair costs state motorists $2.2 billion annually in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs.
The DOT, which resurfaces about 250 miles of pavement annually, says state-maintained roads are getting a bum rap, and only a tiny percentage are in poor condition. Poor conditions on Connecticut’s rural roads that are maintained by cities, towns and villages lower the overall rankings of the state’s roads, agency spokesman Kevin Nursick says.
Connecticut has more than 20,000 miles of public roadways, and about half were built more than 55 years ago. About 80 percent of the miles are maintained by cities, towns and villages, and 3,734 miles, including major highways, are maintained by the state.
Besides pavement conditions, traffic congestion is another concern. Sixty percent of Connecticut’s urban interstates experience congestion during peak hours, TRIP says.
Though funding is still in doubt, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the DOT two years ago unveiled a 30-year, $100 billion plan, Let’s Go CT, to upgrade Connecticut’s roads and bridges while modernizing, improving and expanding Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure. In a 2015 report outlining the project, Malloy wrote that “an aging infrastructure, traffic congestion and long-delayed planning have placed our economy and our quality of life at risk.”
Every year, Malloy wrote, drivers spend up to one work week stuck in traffic, costing nearly $1.6 billion in lost time and fuel and a greater amount “in higher operating costs, fuel and accidents caused by deficient, congested roads and bridges.”
Malloy’s press secretary, Chris Collibee, says the state “underinvested in its transportation system for the past several decades.
“While other states were expanding and building new roads and mass-transportation systems, Connecticut sat idle,” he says. “Under the leadership of Gov. Malloy, our state has taken the first steps in reversing those decades of neglect. The current condition of our transportation networks did not happen overnight, and reversing those decades of neglect will take time.”
Connecticut faces challenges, says Baruch Feigenbaum, the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation’s assistant director of transportation policy, because it has “older-than-average infrastructure and wet, cold weather” that wears infrastructure more quickly.
“However, this is not an excuse for the state to perform as poorly as it does in pavement and bridge quality, expenditures and congestion,” Feigenbaum says. “Connecticut DOT must do better.”
TRIP’s analysis of 2015 Federal Highway Administration data shows that, besides 57 percent of the state’s major roads in poor condition, 22 percent are in mediocre condition, 11 percent in fair condition and 10 percent in good condition. Those numbers include both state-maintained and locally maintained roads.
DOT argues organizations citing a substantial percentage of Connecticut roads in poor condition use a different — and problematic — rating system than the one it uses. Looking at only state-maintained roads, Nursick says, the rating system used by DOT shows 45 percent of state-maintained roads in fair condition, 41 percent in good condition, 12 percent in excellent condition and 2 percent in poor condition.
A September 2016 report by the Reason Foundation also put Connecticut’s roads in a very negative light. The report tracked the performance of the 50 state-owned highway systems and ranked them in 11 categories including pavement conditions, deficient bridges, traffic congestion, fatality rates, and administrative and maintenance costs per mile.
Connecticut ranked 44th in the nation — or seventh worst — in highway performance and cost-effectiveness. Neighboring states, Nursick says, “are in the same overall range, so it’s clearly a regional issue, not DOT doing something out-in-left-field wrong.”
Other factors that may contribute to Connecticut’s low ranking, he says, are a higher cost of living and more road traffic that increases congestion rates and repair costs. “There’s more traffic to work around as we work on the roads,” Nursick says.
URBAN ROADS
Nearly a third of the nation’s major urban roads — interstates, freeways and other arterial routes — have pavements that are in “substandard condition” and “provide an unacceptably rough ride to motorists,” according to a TRIP report released in November. And Connecticut has its own unfavorable niche: three of the nation’s top 25 large urban areas with the highest share of roads in poor condition.
Sixty-one percent of Connecticut’s urban roads are in poor condition, 19 percent in mediocre condition, 9 percent in fair condition and 11 percent in good condition, according to TRIP’s analysis of 2014 Federal Highway Administration survey data.
TRIP ranks the pavement in the Bridgeport-Stamford area as the worst in New England — and sixth-worst in the USA — among urban regions with a population of at least 500,000 people. Fifty-five percent of the pavement on major roads and highways in that area is in poor condition and provides a rough ride, the transportation research group says.
That’s not surprising news to Connecticut motorist Laurie DeAngelis, who says “the I-95 corridor in Bridgeport is horrible,” especially northbound.
“If you start at about Exit 26 and then go through Bridgeport and Stratford, it is one pothole and/or car part after another,” says DeAngelis, a Newtown resident. “It is especially rough over the bridges. I have gotten to the point where I try to avoid that area altogether.”
The rough roads in the Bridgeport-Stamford area cost the average motorist an additional $797 annually in vehicle maintenance costs, according to TRIP. That expense is the highest of all urban regions in New England and No. 9 nationally, the group says.
DeAngelis compares pavement conditions on I-95 in the Bridgeport-area roads to those on I-84 outside Hartford.
“If you are traveling north of Hartford on I-84, you can barely find a pothole, and there are more lanes and a carpool lane,” she says. “The I-95 corridor in Bridgeport is horrible compared to I-84 north of Hartford. We pay the most taxes in the state in Fairfield County, and our roads are the worst. Go figure.”
DOT’s rating system shows no pavement on interstate roads in poor condition, Nursick says.
“The DOT does not base transportation-infrastructure decisions on who or what area of the state pays more taxes than another,” he says. “Some of the factors we consider are needs, deficiencies, existing conditions and life-cycle analysis.”
TRIP places two other urban areas in Connecticut on its national list of 25 worst for pavement conditions. New Haven ranks 14th worst with 47 percent of major roads and highways in poor condition, and Hartford 25th worst with 38 percent in poor condition. The group also says the Springfield, Massachusetts, area, which includes both Massachusetts and northern Connecticut roads, ranks 22nd worst with 39 percent in poor condition.
The New Haven area’s rough roads cost the average motorist an additional $728 annually, TRIP says. That’s the second-highest expense in New England and $48 more yearly than Boston motorists pay for rough roads in their area.
Besides pavement condition, traffic congestion is another major problem in Connecticut. The state has the busiest urban interstates in New England and the third busiest — behind No. 1 California and No. 2 Maryland — in the U.S., TRIP says.
With 60 percent of its urban interstates considered congested, Connecticut is tied with Hawaii for seventh-worst congestion in the USA, the group says. Two neighboring states — Rhode Island and Massachusetts — are slightly more congested on their urban interstates.
RURAL ROADS
Nearly 40 percent of Connecticut’s rural roads are in poor condition, 34 percent in mediocre condition, 17 percent in fair condition and 11 percent in good condition, according to TRIP’s analysis of 2015 Federal Highway Administration data.
The Reason Foundation ranks Connecticut 44th of 50 states in pavement conditions on rural roads and 24th in pavement conditions on rural interstate roads.
Connecticut’s rural roads received some unwanted publicity two years ago when a TRIP analysis of federal accident data revealed they had the deadliest fatality rate in the nation. The state, however, incorrectly filled out crash forms and mistakenly included urban fatalities, TRIP’s Moretti says. Connecticut’s non-interstate rural fatality rates are below the national average, he says.
BRIDGES
Connecticut has 5,300 bridges, including about 4,000 owned and maintained by the DOT. Nursick says 270 of the state-maintained bridges and 159 of those maintained by cities, towns and villages are structurally deficient.
Structurally deficient bridges, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, have “deteriorated structural components” and may either be closed or have speed and weight limits. Though structurally deficient bridges are “not necessarily unsafe,” they must be inspected regularly because “critical load-carrying elements” are in poor condition and “require significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement,” the engineers say.
The Federal Highway Administration oversees the National Bridge Inspection program, which calls for regular assessments of public vehicular bridges more than 20 feet in length to ensure safety.
The agency’s 2016 data, according to TRIP, shows that, of 4,214 state and locally maintained bridges in Connecticut in the program, 338, or 8 percent, are structurally deficient. The average for all 50 states is 9 percent. (TRIP’s data is based on the Federal Highway Administration’s inventory of bridges at least 20 feet in length, which likely accounts for the DOT’s larger total of bridges.)
According to an American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis of Federal Highway Administration data, the West River Bridge — with 150,600 daily crossings — is Connecticut’s most traveled structurally deficient bridge. The bridge, which is on Interstate 95 between New Haven and West Haven, was built in 1957. Farther west, the Yankee Doodle Bridge, which is on I-95 and spans the Norwalk River and was built in 1958, handles about 5,000 fewer daily crossings and ranks No. 2 on the list of most traveled structurally deficient bridges. Of the top 10 bridges, eight are on I-95 and I-91, while two are on I-84.
Connecticut has a much greater number of bridges — 1,001 of the 4,000 DOT-maintained bridges — that are functionally obsolete, Nursick says. An additional 286 owned by local municipalities also fall into that category. A bridge is classified as functionally obsolete if its design is outdated. It may have lower load-carrying capacity, narrower lanes or shoulders or less clearance underneath than bridges built to current standards.
Many bridges were built decades ago, many get high traffic volume, and the state often gets harsh winter weather — “a tough scenario for the longevity of bridges,” Nursick says. “The long-term cumulative effect of those things can’t be denied.”
While functionally obsolete bridges are not necessarily unsafe, they have older design features and must have limits for speed and weight to ensure safe operation of vehicles, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Vehicular restrictions on functionally obsolete bridges “contribute to traffic congestion” and “affect safe and efficient personal mobility and movement of goods and services,” the engineers say. “The restrictions may also result in such major inconveniences as school buses taking lengthy detours and increased response times for emergency vehicles required to use alternate routes.”
Connecticut’s bridges, says the Reason Foundation’s Feigenbaum, are “in much-worse-than-average condition.” Pennsylvania and other states with low rankings “have taken innovative steps to prioritize deficient bridges, including entering into a public-private partnership,” he says. “Connecticut needs to look at various innovative ways to improve its bridges.”
Infrastructure reports, including the one done by the Reason Foundation, often knock Connecticut, Nursick says, because of its number of functionally obsolete bridges. Such a designation “has no bearing on condition,” he says. Connecticut’s bridges are “not too bad and generally improving.”
THE FUTURE
Collibee, Malloy’s press secretary, says the governor recognizes that the state’s transportation system is a priority.
“Transportation is too important to our future,” Collibee says. “If we want to grow jobs and attract businesses, we must make our infrastructure best-in-class. Infrastructure is one of the top issues facing our state, and we have a $100 billion plan to tackle it.”
That 30-year plan calls for $5.4 billion to maintain the pavement and have no state-maintained roads in poor condition. And, among other road, bridge, rail and transportation projects, the plan calls for $18.7 billion to maintain bridges and ensure that less than 10 percent are structurally deficient.
Finding the huge amount of money needed to start and complete the projects, though, may be a daunting task. Last year, a nine-member Transportation Finance Panel created by Malloy recommended various ways to fund the project, including implementing tolls and raising sales and gasoline taxes. The most recent two-year budget, though, was unveiled by Malloy in February and includes no monies to fund the transportation initiative beyond 2020, when startup money will be depleted.
Connecticut traditionally depends on gas-tax revenues to fund highway and transportation projects, but that revenue source has been declining. Gas prices have dropped, and an increasing number of motorists are using more fuel-efficient vehicles and electric cars.
The Yankee Institute for Public Policy says the many proposed projects in the plan need to be prioritized, and some “wish-list” projects, such as a rail line to Springfield, should be eliminated.
“Too many Connecticut projects fail to distinguish between needs and wants,” says the institute’s Liebau. “We need Metro-North to serve more than 100,000 people a day as they commute to New York City. We don’t need a $1 billion rail line to Springfield for 2,000 people. At half a million dollars per commuter, that’s an expensive luxury for a state that’s running out of money.”
Transportation advocates were unable to get on the November election ballot a “lockbox” proposal that would prohibit the Connecticut General Assembly from using the state’s special transportation fund for non-transportation projects. Such a lockbox is needed, Malloy said, before new revenue sources are created to fund the 30-year transportation plan.
the reading room
CONNECTICUT VALLEY TOBACCO
By Brianna Dunlap, photographs by Leonard Hellerman
The History Press
2016, 126 pages
Like the bubbly alcohol that originates in the Champagne region of France, or the cheese from Stilton in England, Connecticut has its own product known throughout the world as originating from our neck of the woods: Connecticut shade tobacco. The tobacco fields and barns of the northern Connecticut River Valley provide some of the most iconic Connecticut imagery there is. Now, Brianna Dunlap, a historian who has worked with the Connecticut Valley Agricultural Museum in Windsor, gives us an expansive history of tobacco in Connecticut, stretching back to early-settler appropriation of what was a native crop in the 1600s, and running all the way up to the present day. Illustrated with archival photos of laborers of decades past, and lush photographs of contemporary workers, the book is an illuminating look into our one truly homegrown commercial agriculture. | MICHAEL LEE-MURPHY |
GILLETTE CASTLE: A HISTORY
By Erik Ofgang
The History Press
2017, 144 pages
In the 1890s, Arthur Conan Doyle killed off his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes. The iconic character was ultimately revived, thanks, in part, to William Gillette, an eccentric Hartford actor. In the late 1890s, Gillette wrote and starred in the title role of Sherlock Holmes, the first major production featuring the Baker Street detective. Gillette would portray Holmes in more than 1,300 live performances, leaving an undeniable mark on the character. It was Gillette who gave Holmes his now-signature deerstalker cap, large magnifying glass, curved pipe and “elementary” catchphrase. Gillette’s portrayal also helped convince Doyle to bring the detective back to life and allowed Gillette to build the house that is today known as Gillette Castle. Complete with spy mirrors, sliding furniture and hidden rooms, the castle is a unique spot that should be on every Connecticut resident’s must-visit list. I was inspired to write this book about the creation of the castle and Gillette’s role in the evolution of Sherlock Holmes after visiting it while on assignment for this magazine. | ERIK OFGANG |
DANI AND THE DAY THE BULLY CHANGED EVERYTHING
By Donna DiMaio Rooney, illustrated by Sally Taylor
Sheepy Press
2016, 82 pages
Anyone who has witnessed bullying or known a loved one who has doesn’t need to be told that children are capable of being very cruel to one another. Bullying calls forth a number of important and difficult questions for young people. What is the role of the witness or bystander? How can we promote empathy in a world that seems to need it more than ever? This book by Connecticut-based Rooney places the complex and painful psychodrama of bullying in the setting of a farmyard, and the book allows young adults and children to explore notions of difference and how to overcome the impulse to do nothing. | MICHAEL LEE-MURPHY |
fashionable fundraiser
The Power of Women
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR BERTICE BERRY BRINGS HER WISDOM TO POWER OF THE PURSE
BY MARYELLEN FILLO
There are few places where woman power is more evident than at the annual Power of the Purse conference at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. The June 15 fundraiser, put on by the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut’s Women’s Leadership Council, not only features a near-capacity crowd of 1,200 and hundreds of donated designer bags that are up for grabs at its signature silent auction, but also award-winning guest speaker Bertice Berry.
Berry, a best-selling author, lecturer and sociologist, hosted and produced her own syndicated television talk show, and has appeared on a variety of television shows, including CBS News Nightwatch (the predecessor of CBS Overnight News), The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Berry is the author of two memoirs, The World According to Me and I’m On My Way, But Your Foot Is On My Head: A Black Woman’s Story of Getting Over Life’s Hurdles, as well as several novels. A motivational speaker who lives in Savannah, Georgia, Berry reflected on her own values, the meaning of success, the gender gap, and her message for women as she prepares for her trip to Connecticut.
You are this year’s headliner at the Power of the Purse event here in Hartford. Past speakers have debated the question of whether being successful as a woman, or anyone for that matter, means a symbolic purse full of money. Your thoughts?
Money does not buy you success. I believe with all my heart that to do the work you were supposed to do is the key to success. You know, when you are teaching, you don’t make all the money in the world. But the joy from the ‘ah ha’ moment with a student is power. We trade so much of our power. Money is just one thing. Having it is a convenience, but the power of relationships, that’s the real power. I would rather have favor than money. When you have favor, you don’t need money.
What keeps women from success?
Women have more ego areas. Men just worry about being the best providers. Women worry about being the best provider with the best shoes, and the best purse, being the best cook, the best mother and wife, the best housekeeper, the prettiest, trying to be the best at everything. We are constantly trying to be the best at EVERYTHING. We never relax to enjoy our relationships and to simply have them. When we are free of this pressure to be the best at everything, life is better. I love the idea that Power of the Purse brings women together, crossing demographics, professions, income, background. There is success and power in that. We connect with a lot of people in a short period of time, and when it is over, you leave feeling more inspired and more powerful than when you came in.
Here we are as women still fighting for the same equality it seems we have been fighting for forever. How do you think that change happens?
There has been change. And the issue is not about men against women. What we need is a wholehearted approach. Women who are in power are there because men brought them there. Slavery ended because someone said it had to end. Like-minded people who can think with their hearts and heads make change. Power of the Purse will not only be attended by women but also by really smart men who want to be in a room of amazing people.
What is the best advice you ever got? And the worst?
The best advice is constantly changing, you know. I believe in, ‘You cannot know then what you know now, but you do know now what you need in the future.’ You don’t know what is going to happen in the future, but everything that has happened to you up to this point is preparing you for it. It’s kind of like I can’t do anything about the doughnut I ate last year and the cellulite on my thighs, but I know now that if I don’t want to see more, I don’t eat the doughnut. It’s about goal-setting, looking down the road and seeing what I am going to need and working on it now. And even without money you can prepare for this.
As far as the worst advice, any advice that pulls me away from who I am is bad advice. I don’t want anything to keep me from being authentic to myself. When I was doing TV I was asked to cut off my dreadlocks and wear a wig so I would look ‘normal.’ And if I did it, I would get a signing bonus and the show renewed. It was worth more to me to be who I am than to take the deal. I knew the money and security could have done a lot for me and my family but I knew the true value was in being true to me.
In reading about you, I noticed you were a comedian and had a radio show as well as a TV show. Is it time for a comeback?
I’d consider it as long as it wouldn’t be a traditional show. It would have to be something that allows me to be me. I get some crazy offer every year, and then they say but you would have to be more like ‘this,’ and that’s the kiss of death for me. Time was when television was the only way to send a message. Now there are so many other ways.
What inspires you?
Everything, and I know that sounds trite to the world. I have this app, Periscope, and it’s a live stream. Every day I watch things like children being rescued, or refugees finding a new life, or science breakthroughs. I find inspiration in real life. Beautiful music, nature, books, animals. I have five children. Some were my sister’s and the others just smell children on me and join the family. [Berry has five adopted children.] I find inspiration in my church, an Episcopal church that looks like Downton Abbey and has a pastor who sounds like Malcolm X. It’s not about what inspires me but what wakes me up. I was awakened years ago and am constantly learning to stay awake.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
People don’t know I stutter despite speaking publicly for a living. I only stutter now when I am exhausted or up too late. I play the handpan, which looks like an inverted steel pan, and the harmonica, both badly. There is always water in my refrigerator, because I love water. And I would rather wear a fun pair of shoes than the ones I can really walk in. I am hoping to wear a fun pair in Hartford!
POWER OF THE PURSE LUNCHEON AND SILENT AUCTION
JUNE 15 | 11 A.M.-1:30 P.M.
CONNECTICUT CONVENTION CENTER, HARTFORD
Tickets: $125
sports
Connecticut’s Beautiful Game
IN NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD, TWO NEW SOCCER TEAMS ADD TO STATE’S SPORTS LANDSCAPE
BY MICHAEL LEE-MURPHY
For some reason, our country’s sporting proclivities, like a few other things, diverged from globally established norms. While the rest of the globe coalesces around soccer, we have our own American rhythms of baseball and our American crash of football. But that other football, or fútbol, has made inroads in recent decades, and we have joined the world. There are more soccer games on television, the commentary is better, and American knowledge of the beautiful game has deepened and expanded. Soccer is the world’s common language and Americans are starting to speak it with verve. What an excellent time it is then for Connecticut football (soccer) fans, as two teams celebrate their inaugural seasons here this summer.
New Haven’s team, the mixed professional-amateur Elm City Express, plays on the west side of New Haven, in Yale’s Reese Stadium. A late-April exhibition reveals it as a beautiful place to watch a match. The faded grandeur of the Yale Bowl looms next door, and the lights from the traffic on Derby Avenue begin to shine as night descends. As Elm City Express takes the field against Waterbury’s Post University, Teddy Haley must feel a bit like King Solomon splitting the baby: he is the head coach of both teams. On this night, he commands Elm City, while his assistant at Post, Luis Figueiredo, coaches the Eagles.
Soccer is one of the few things that passes for a world language, and by at least one count, the Elm City players communicate with each other in four different tongues. The crowd, too, is polyglot. “M.s arriba!” someone shouts from the crowd as a midfielder streaks up the side. In a stadium that seats more than 1,200, the crowd for this exhibition match appears to be mostly family of the players from all over the world.
That soccer exists as its own language, shared between peoples from different places, is not only a byproduct of the Elm City Express. It’s part of the team’s structure. Elm City’s ownership group also owns a sister club in Brazil: Clube Atl.tico Tubar.o. The Brazilian team plays in the first division league of the state of Santa Catarina. The two teams will share expertise and even players, according to Zack Henry, the club’s president.
The connection with Brazil was one of the main reasons Haley joined the organization, the Post coach and former Division I college player says.
Elm City Express will play in the National Premier Soccer League, a sprawling league founded in 2003 that now has 13 conferences and nearly 100 teams across the country. Elm City’s division consists of teams across New England, New Jersey and New York, including Hartford City FC, which is also new and will play at Central Connecticut State University’s stadium in New Britain. Like their fellow Hartfordites the Yard Goats, Hartford City FC has had a bit of a delayed start. After initial plans to use Dillon Stadium descended into charges of wire fraud on the part of the team’s first owners, Hartford City FC has a new ownership group and is playing its first matches in the NPSL.
As for why Henry decided to go with New Haven as a location, it is again that blend of peoples and cultures. In a release, Henry cites a recent study that shows New Haven’s demographic mix is the most similar to the country’s as a whole. “We are thrilled to be bringing our soccer club to the most American city in the U.S.,” he says.
With a season that runs from late May to August, the NPSL operates in the 4th Division of the United States Soccer pyramid, with Major League Soccer at the top. NPSL teams are eligible to participate in the U.S. Open Cup through their affiliation with the United States Soccer Federation and the United States Adult Soccer Association.
Elm City single-game tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for kids. For Hartford City FC, adult tickets are $10 and kids’ tickets are $5. Season tickets for both clubs are $50 for adults and $25 for children 12 and under. Each team has six home games.
Along with president Henry and head coach Haley, Elm City Express is led by vice president Luiz Henrique Martins Ribeiro, general manager Brian Neumeyer and technical advisor Eric Da Costa, the Quinnipiac University men’s soccer coach. Neumeyer recently completed his 19th season as Newtown High boys soccer coach and was a member of the Southern Connecticut State University men’s soccer team that won the NCAA Division II title in 1990.
Some of the players Haley and his team have signed for Elm City are former players of his from Post, where he has coached since 2005. Elm City keeper Matt Jones, an Englishman who played his college years at Fairfield’s Sacred Heart University, returns to Connecticut after stints in Portugal’s Second Division and with the Philadelphia Union in the MLS. Defender and Guilford local Sean O’Brien will leapfrog West Rock from Southern Connecticut State down to Reese Stadium.
For this preseason exhibition match, at a time when the squad is still being finalized, Elm City Express is by far the better team. They are looser, and play with an adventurous spirit up front, with probing strikers — like Cape Verde native and Quinnipiac star Graciano Brito — and midfielders with eyes that spot angles. In the first half, Elm City plays a fairly defensive game, and spends a lot of time in their own end. Gradually, they start feeling more comfortable making long stabs down the pitch, where a talented crew of midfielders and strikers begin to rain goals down on Post’s keeper. The pros win 5-nil.
Haley speaks directly, with the slight rasp typical of the well-exercised voices of sports coaches. After the exhibition match, Haley is pleased, but not pleased enough. There is work to be done on transitional defense, on offensive sets. “There was a few times where we gave away too much space,” he says.
“The ball turns, the world turns,” the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano once wrote about soccer. With the Elm City Express, the world turns around a ball on a field in New Haven.
seen
stepping out
The excitement and glamour of Hollywood and the 89th Academy Awards came to the Spotlight Theatres in Hartford for the annual Red Carpet Experience fundraiser, sponsored by AIDS Connecticut (ACT). Attendees viewed the Academy Awards live and took part in red carpet interviews, a fashion show and silent auction. From left, pageant winners Joyce Keating, Kyle Ralston and Diane Saia. (photo by MaryEllen Fillo)
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