- T2 Center Training Team: Looking Ahead in 2023!
- Emerging Leaders to Watch: Taylor Rodrigue, Town of South Windsor
- CT T2 2023 Photo Contest
- Innovation Station: FHWA Announces EDC 7 Innovations
- Green Snow Pro Around CT!
- Safety Matters: Every Day Counts – Round 7: Safety for All Users
- Town Crier: Stamford Moves Ahead With 'Tactical Urbanism' Solutions for Pedestrian Deaths
- Are You Wearing the Right PPE the Right Way?
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T2 Center Training Team: Looking Ahead in 2023! |
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Thank you all for your interest in professional development and your support of the Training & Technical Assistance (T2) Center. The T2 Training Team has been hard at work planning another year full of opportunities for you and your crews to learn about new technologies and practices, share ideas and innovations, and improve your operations. We hope you find the variety of offerings interesting and beneficial to your agency.
The new schedule can be found here. As you look over the schedule, please let us know if you are interested in hosting a session. We appreciate being able to offer trainings around the state and in partnership with local agencies. As a host, you will benefit from having the training in town because your staff doesn't have to travel for the class they need. You will also receive two (2) scholarship seats valued at $100.00 each from the T2 Center for your staff to attend a class of their choosing, valid for one year from issuance.
In the coming weeks, we will be sending out the Host Site Requirements with more details on the type of space we need to ensure a successful workshop session for all. If you know of a facility in your town that meets these requirements and you would like to be a host for us, we'd love to hear from you! Please contact Bethe Greene at [email protected].
We would also like to offer an added Thank you to the 29 municipalities that hosted a T2 workshop in 2022. Your continued support is greatly appreciated!
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Taylor Rodrigue, Town of South Windsor
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Taylor Rodrigue is one of South Windsor's rising stars, starting this past June; she has fully embraced the opportunity and made many indelible impacts to the Engineering Department already. A freshly minted P.E. Taylor received her undergraduate degree from the University of Maine and her master's degree from Villanova. As an engineer on the younger side of the profession, she has brought some efficiencies and new insight to the team: revisiting the Town’s construction standards to bring them more up to date and simplified, capturing a sizeable grant for road work, and helping bring more organization to the group as a whole. Her prior experience on the consulting side with CDM Smith has proven invaluable.
Taylor appreciates spending time with friends, her dog Moose, and helping out on the family farm-along with tending to her wide array of house plants. The Town of South Windsor looks forward to supporting Taylor to cultivate her craft and bring more intrinsic value to our customers-the residents of South Windsor.
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FHWA Announces EDC-7 Innovations |
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The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has announced the latest round of transportation innovations through the Every Day Counts Program (EDC-7). This program has helped local highway agencies identify and quickly deploy proven innovations that save time and money.
For over 10 years the Every Day Counts program has rapidly deployed proven technologies and processes. The EDC-7 innovations will improve safety for all road users, build a sustainable infrastructure for the future and grow an inclusive workforce. Notably, some of the EDC-7 innovations were chosen with multimodal state transportation agencies in mind and are of interest to transit and rail agencies.
Some of this year’s initiatives include: Nighttime Visibility for Safety (see the Safety Matters article), Next-Generation Traffic Incident Management (TIM): Technology for Saving Lives, Rethinking Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) for Design-Build, and Strategic Workforce Development.
View an informational video about the EDC Program, here.
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Register Now for EDC-7 Virtual Summit
The EDC-7 Virtual Summit registration link is now live! The summit, taking place from February 14-16, 2023, brings together transportation leaders and frontline professionals responsible for developing and delivering highway projects. FHWA welcomes participation from all of their partners—State transportation departments, local agencies, Federal land management agencies, tribes, and industry.
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Green Snow Pro Around CT! |
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Starting in Fall 2022, participants that attended a CT Green Snow Pro class and passed the exam were mailed a decal to display on their work vehicle to show their commitment to utilizing best practices in winter operations. We hope to see more CT Green Snow Pro decals around our state this year! |
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New Year, New Name, Same Content
- CT Green Snow Pro for Roadways
- CT Green Snow Pro for Parking Lots and Sidewalks
We plan to hold 6 classes this Spring, so continue to check the Workshop Schedule for the dates and locations of these classes!
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Every Day Counts – Round 7: Safety for All Users |
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In the latest round of Every Day Counts (EDC-7), two innovations were highlighted that will be featured in this month’s Safety Matters:
Nighttime Visibility for Safety. The nighttime crash fatality rate is three times the daytime rate. Enhancing visibility along corridors, intersections, and pedestrian crossings can help reduce fatalities. This initiative promotes traffic control devices and properly designed lighting to improve safety for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and people who use public transportation and passenger rail services.
For more information on nighttime visibility resources, visit:
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Next-Generation Traffic Incident Management (TIM): Technology for Saving Lives. Over six million crashes a year in the U.S. put responders and other vulnerable road users at risk. Next-Generation Traffic Incident Management programs promote emerging technologies such as emergency vehicle lighting and queue warning solutions. These and other tools can advance safety and operations to help keep crash responders safe and mitigate traffic impacts after a crash.
Resources have been developed during EDC-6 and EDC-7 for Next-Generation TIM, you can find them at:
For more information and assistance with local road safety in your community, contact Melissa Evans, Safety Circuit Rider, at [email protected].
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Stamford Moves Ahead With 'Tactical Urbanism' Solutions for Pedestrian Deaths |
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Two days before the January 3rd meeting of the Vision Zero Task Force – created to eliminate traffic deaths on Stamford streets by 2032 – a woman died in yet another crash.
Stamford resident Marcela Parra, 31, was killed on New Year’s Day when her Honda crossed Greenwich Avenue, jumped the sidewalk and hit a tree, Stamford police report.
The downtown accident occurred blocks from a double-fatal crash that took the lives of two 25-year-old pedestrians on Dec. 3. Giovani Vega Benis and Yuliana Arias Lozano, co-workers at a nearby restaurant, were killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing Washington Boulevard, police have said.
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During the task force meeting Public Safety Director Lou DeRubeis said police are still investigating their deaths and hope to provide information “in the next couple of weeks.”
The hit-and-run has drawn widespread attention in the Hispanic community, which last week organized a rally demanding justice for Vega Benis and Arias Lozano. Police have identified Greenwich resident Michael Talbot, 24, as the driver but have not charged him.
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Are You Wearing the Right PPE the Right Way? |
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Working roadway incidents is hazardous.
From 2019 to 2022, 202 emergency responders were struck and killed by vehicles operating at a roadway incident scene. That’s an average of one responder every week. In 2022, the number of fatalities was down compared to 2021 and we hope that’s due to better training and stronger public education, but it’s not yet a trend over time. We need to continue pushing on multiple fronts to reduce struck-by line-of-duty deaths. There are factors we can control — and wearing PPE is one of them.
In this New Year, resolve to always wear your high visibility apparel, helmet, and other appropriate PPE when you respond to roadway incidents. That’s one factor that will help keep your name off The List. To live out that resolution, you first have to know what you should be wearing and how to make wearing it a habit. The new RSLN.org online learning module, “Personal Protective Equipment for Roadway Incident Response,” will show you what is required and recommended for apparel, helmets, eye protection, and footwear.
Many responders do not consistently and correctly wear appropriate PPE at roadway incidents. For example, in a recent Emergency Responder Safety Institute (ERSI) survey, over 64% of respondents reported that the members of their crew never or almost never wear a helmet for all or most of the duration of a roadway incident response. If you are one of them, you are unnecessarily exposed to hazards on the roadway. You can change that. Learn how to select and correctly and consistently wear PPE from head to toe, to mitigate the hazards of working roadway incidents.
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Along with our Facebook page, the T2 Center now has an Instagram page! Click on the icons below to like the T2 Center on Facebook and follow the T2 Center on Instagram! |
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If you have any ideas or suggestions for future Connecticut Crossroads topics, please feel free to email the designer Regina Hackett at [email protected]
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