Last month, the Connecticut Post ran a story about Jay Tyler, who, through no fault of his own, has what could be described as the most bizarre driveway in Fairfield County.

Thanks to a road-improvement project on Huntington Road in Stratford, Tyler's driveway spills out into the middle of the southbound travel lane. The project also has left Tyler with a driveway that's so steep, it's almost impossible to negotiate unless you're in one of those heavy-duty Army vehicles you see on the TV news reports from Afghanistan.

In Your Corner was hoping to report that, because of the earlier story in the Post, the problem would have been resolved by now.

We're sorry to report that Tyler remains on a rocky road that winds its way through a purgatory populated by state and local engineers, construction crews, surveyors, project supervisors, progress meetings, road graders, storm drains, asphalt and crushed stone.

The driveway isn't the only dilemma facing Tyler. The $4.1 million project has involved blasting that Tyler said may have compromised his foundation. There are also drainage issues

"If they don't maintain the storm drain, which you know is going to happen, what's going to happen then?" Tyler says. "And I'm on soft rock, and is all that blasting going to cause my foundation to shift? I want a five-year guarantee."

To make matters worse, the road is in Stratford, but Tyler's house is in Trumbull. The area is also checkered with wetlands, further limiting possible solutions. And the project has also left Tyler with a six-foot cliff for his front yard.

The people in charge of the project -- and there are several of those -- had proposed a settlement a week ago in which Huntington Road in front of his house would be raised 18 inches and shifted to the west a little, thus reducing the driveway's grade and, at the same time, making it possible to terminate the drive properly, at the curb. But Tyler said that such a solution would cause other headaches.

"I'm trying to figure out how they want to do this," he said. "Now, if they shift the road over, they're going to make the road even more dangerous than it already is," he said. "You're widening the road, which makes drivers go faster, but you have even sharper turns."

Tyler saad that before he signs anything, he wants a five-year guarantee that his house won't shift.

In Your Corner has about a half-century of combined experience in journalism. It has seen a few bad examples of road engineering over the years. Tyler's driveway isn't the worst example -- the state Department of Transportation, which has a hand in this project, has no shortage of projects that they've had to do over again.

There's the infamous Interstate 84 drainage project that was supposed to cost $58 million when it began in 2002, and wound up costing $80 million, thanks to an inept contractor and lousy supervision. Some of the catch basins were installed upside-down, others weren't connected to anything.

That contractor, L.G. DeFelice of North Haven, began the work in 2002 and walked off the job in 2006

In DOT's defense, let the record state that it has about half the employees that it did back in 1969. Meanwhile, its projects have been getting increasingly costly and complex. Morale has sunk to new lows, according to news reports, as politically connected consultants get work that used to be performed by DOT engineers.

We could start talking about ex-con, ex-governor John Rowland here, who fired 3,000 state workers while he was living at 990 Prospect Ave., in Hartford, but we won't.

So Jay Tyler has plenty of company across the length and breath of the Nutmeg State. His funny-looking driveway isn't the worst example of a botched engineering job, but it's one of the more obvious ones.

Anyone traveling southbound on Huntington Road can't help but notice his driveway emptying out into the street. You have to swerve to get around it.

That's bad enough, but imagine living in that house. Pulling out into the street is like being on some sort of amusement park ride, only the danger isn't simulated, it's real. And its not very much fun.

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