I’ve lived in the Naugatuck Valley for most of my life, and I’ve traveled Route 8 for most of it. I like to think that I know Route 8 better than most, but even I’m screwed up with the recent renumbering of it’s exits. It’s getting better though, and now the rest of Connecticut is discovering the fresh hell of getting lost in Ansonia, Waterbury, and Torrington.
Over the course of the past seven weeks, since September 9, 2024, the Connecticut Department of Transportation has replaced and renumbered the highway signs on Route 8 Northbound and Southbound from Bridgeport all the way to Winchester, and Route 25 North and Southbound in Trumbull. According to ct.gov, this project cost just under $10 million dollars, and is scheduled to be complete by November 26, 2024. One of the first areas of Route 8 that changed was my exit in Torrington. Formerly, I lived off of Exit 42 (Litchfield/Harwinton/118), and now my new exit number is 46.
It only took a week before I gave the wrong exit number to someone, who kept driving up Route 8 thinking they had screwed up, despite the new signs that said “Old Exit 42′ very visibly displayed on the approach…