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Op-Ed: No Relief from Overnight Construction in New Canaan
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In 2020 at the height of the pandemic, with our five-year-old and newborn in tow, my husband and I escaped NYC for New Canaan.
It was an unsettling time for many of us, and New Canaan offered peace and community, and a school experience for our kindergartener that many at the time could only dream of. Moving here will likely go down as one of the best decisions we have made in our lives, and we have been wholeheartedly welcomed, supported, and included by the schools, our church community, parents and friends. Yet this past September 2022, nestled in our beds at home on White Oak Shade Road near the Merritt Parkway overpass, we were woken by disturbing overnight construction by the Connecticut State Department of Transportation.
It started with tree removal, and in the following weeks and months it became blasting, excavating, rock drilling, pile driving, dropping concrete barriers, flood lights shining in our windows, and incessant beeping every Monday to Friday night 9pm to 5am, and often throughout the day as well. Most nights the work begins at 9pm with a parade of vehicles with beeping alerts full blast, and the construction noise and vibration continue with a crescendo around 3am and completion by 5am or 6am.
The house shakes from the work, and I have learned there are not enough white noise machines and earplugs in the world to keep this mother asleep in a shaking house full of her children. My husband and I both work full-time, and for us and our two small children the constant sleep disturbances are untenable and inhumane.