To the Editor:

After reading the recent article about replacing the bridge on Route 302 between the Pleasance and the Ram Pasture, I am not sure who should be more embarrassed: the state representatives that said the project should take two years to complete or the local officials who accepted the notion that this project should take so long to execute. As a former bridge engineer, I appreciate the complexities and the logistics of the work involved, but with current construction techniques the actual work of inconveniencing the traveling public should take no more than two weeks if full ABC (advanced bridge construction) techniques are employed and certainly no more that a month if less aggressive methods are employed. I realize that this state has seen a substantial brain drain since the onset of the last recession, but please tell me that we haven't lost every competent person who works for the government.

Incidentally, can anyone explain to me that when the new three-phase line was installed for the Advanced Fusion Systems factory, no one thought to inform Eversource that the bridge was due to be widened and that the power poles should have been located accordingly. Why do we need to tolerate incompetence and pay for sloppiness when budgets are already strained?

I ask our town representatives to tell the state to go back to the drawing board, and with the use of the parking lot behind the police station as a staging area, develop a plan that should take no more than one month to execute.

Jake Danziger, PE

K. Jake Danziger

Danziger Homes, Inc

5 Stonewall Ridge Road, Newtown         December 13, 2016