2 February—The Dickens, you say. Indeed. The first city is Torrington. For the benefit of the growing horde of non-local Monitor readers, Torrington is attached to Litchfield on the northeast, though that’s irrelevant.

It seems a bicycle path from nowhere to nowhere recently appeared in Torrington. (No, Torrington is not nowhere. Don’t even think it.) The new bicycle lanes were painted on either side of Prospect Street after it was repaved last year. And some signs were erected. The lanes in question run from Pearl Street, about in the middle of Prospect, to busy North Elm Street, where Prospect ends. That’s a total length of just half a mile. Just half a mile.

The bicycle-laned part of Prospect Street, like most of the city, is generally proletarian residential and it tends to be pretty lightly traveled. In the half-century I’ve driven on Prospect street, for whatever reasons, I’ve seen children riding their bikes, usually on the sidewalks; I can’t recall ever having seen adults on bikes on Prospect Street. Nor can I recall accidents involving bikes and cars or bikes and people.

What, then, is a pair of very, very short bicycle lanes between nowhere and nowhere else supposed to be for? Is it supposed to encourage more bicycles? Is it supposed to get kids on bikes off the sidewalks? Is it supposed to discourage cars parking in the street, which I think is already verboten on the fairly narrow thoroughfare? Is it supposed to justify the parking proscription?

It does seem rather silly, doesn’t it? But there must be a reason.

So in an effort to get to that reason, I’ve emailed Mayor Elinor Carbone and one of her executive secretaries three times. I’m still waiting for an answer. Truth be told, I’m still waiting for an acknowledgement. I’ll keep you posted. Perhaps Mayor Carbone will see fit to give me a statement for publication.

Meanwhile, the second city is Waterbury. And the news from the Brass City is more positive. Waterbury lies to the south and east of Litchfield but is not attached except by the Connecticut Route 8 umbilicus and some collaterals. It’s known as the Brass City because in the good old days it was the country’s leading center for the manufacture of mostly heavy brass products.

Waterbury has more recently had serious money problems and its mayors have been convicted criminals; one is still in the slammer, another should still be in the slammer. So in yesterday’s Republican-American, a proud letter-writing Waterburian was singing the praises of his beloved city. Among them was, “Waterbury is fiscally solvent now and we finally have had two consecutive mayors who were not jailbirds.”

Is that impressive or what?