On the first day of summer in 2016, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and transportation officials greeted reporters on a sunny parking deck in Middletown, a spot affording views of a placid bend in the Connecticut River and a treacherous half-mile of state highway.
They came to announce a solution to a puzzle: How to remove two sets of traffic lights on Route 9, a contributor to about 260 crashes in three years on what otherwise is a limited-access highway, without cutting off the city’s riverfront or its rebounding downtown.