One of the things that I’ve always wondered about since moving to Connecticut is why the state highways never took advantage of adding rails or trails along side. Now, according to a nice report in the Advocate the reasons behind the inaction have been identified.

“For two decades, we couldn’t apply for grants toward planning the trail because DOT wouldn’t agree to consider that use for the right of way,” Hoza said.

Now, advocates for bicyclists and multimodal transportation said they hope they are on track as theConnecticut Department of Transportation is awaiting word on a $1 million grant application from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Scenic Byways Program to conduct a feasibility study on the proposed path from Greenwich to Stratford.

That process could take two years if the grant is approved, Connecticut DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said.

DOT engineers gave the Merritt trail low priority over the years because of the challenges routing the path around the parkway’s ornate bridges and appeasing adjacent residents and preservation groups concerned about changing the roadway’s parklike atmosphere, Nursick said.

“Admittedly, in the past, the department has been hesitant and viewed this as a very difficult endeavor to move forward with,” Nursick said.”In the past few years, we’ve been moving forward to a more multimodal approach, and now we’re coming into this with any preconceived notions.”

One preservationist’s park like atmosphere is my weed filled dead zone. Somehow New York State has managed to preserve more historic stuff while modernizing roads and adding trails. Apparently the CT DOT is just getting around to this kind of thinking.

Obama had the right idea, the United States should be concerned that Europe and Asia have all figured out that moving people, goods and services, around cheaply and more conveniently is a good thing. He even said so in the state of the union address. But how is it that the Northeast corridor, the economic engine to all those federal programs gets 2% our of the huge massive $8 billion high speed rail plan? That would be a total of $200 million, of which Connecticut got $40 million. It is almost like Obama took a look at all those New England Democrats and said, I really wish you voted some more Republicans into office.

Overall, I’m pleased that California got �$2.35 billion. Building a high speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco is a great start. California is vital to the success of the US economy. Likewise the $1.1 billion to Chicago in order to create the high speed St. Louis Chicago corridor.

But why is linking Tampa and Orlando worth 1.25 billion? Not enough people get to Disneyworld? Is there any economic output other than tourism and grapefruits coming from Florida these days?

The Northeast corridor between Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and Boston is the greatest economic corridor in the world. Yet every action and inaction of our government leaders has led to a transportation system that is as painful as possible. Look at the cars that commute to work in the corridor — single drivers in most of them. We have a sea of empty asphalt parking lots surrounding the slow speed train stations we do have and office parks located off highways that are perpetually congested.

Connecticut’s $40 million, is for new track between New Haven and Springfield. Congresscritter Rosa DeLauro hailed �it as “…this initiative will be building the infrastructure of the future. These funds have been a long time coming, and I look forward to their arrival and execution. These kinds of projects demonstrate the best realization of ARRA funds: we improve our infrastructure, create jobs, increase our connectivity and productivity, and literally strengthen our nation’s foundations.”

What about expressing some disappointment that the nothing was done for the productivity of the part of the state of Connecticut that actually generates all that productive tax revenue the rest of the state leaches off on? Why isn’t Jim Himes saying that he is disappointed that his district got nothing?

It’s easy to pick on the congresscritters, but let’s focus on where the real problem in the state of transportation within Connecticut is. Governor Rell has dropped the ball in restoring faith in the Coneecticut Department of Transportation. The legislature in Hartford has failed to address transportation infrastructure issue for years. Connecticut can’t compete with the Tampa-orlando corridor because there is absolutely no political leadership in this state that understands anything about how transportation impacts economic development.

Just take a look at Susan Bysiewicz’s latest report on the state of business–”Numbers released recently by my office show that slightly fewer Connecticut businesses shut their doors in 2009 than in 2008, while at the same time, the number of new businesses to start-up in Connecticut was 6.2% lower in 2009 compared to the year before.�The numbers were released as part of monthly totals of new business starts and stops compiled by the Secretary of the State’s office.�Though the numbers are far from ideal, they do show an economy that has rebounded slightly from the precarious position it was in one year ago.”

Actually no, the numbers show that Connecticut is still sucking wind and sucking at generating job growth. And the answer from Washington DC is clear — they don’t think we’d notice if they shovel cash for high speed rail everywhere else.

Remember how the DOT managed to miss I-84 construction work that had amongst other significant problems drainage collection catch basins connected to nothing? Well, the DOT has managed to keep the company on the “pre-qualified” list of approved contractors and then awarded them a $2 million contract. Our tax dollars hard a t work here. The Courant reports:

The state Department of Transportation has awarded a potentially lucrative consultant contract to the Maguire Group, an engineering and inspection firm fired in 2006 for its central role in a botched construction job on I-84.

Maguire was one of two firms that settled a lawsuit by the state attorney general by agreeing to repay or forfeit millions of dollars in public money. The state eventually recovered about $22 million which had to be spent on redoing the project.

The suit and Maguire’s firing came after the DOT’s own inspectors cited “a complete breakdown” of Maguire’s inspection work in a searing, but belated, report on the dangerously shoddy and substandard reconstruction of a 3.5-mile stretch of 1-84 in�Cheshireand�Waterbury.

Yet the DOT never took Maguire off a list of “pre-qualified” consultants and last month awarded the firm an on-call contract for environmental assessment and soil and groundwater testing that could pay the firm up to $2 million a year.

The award last month sent ripples of frustration through the state’s network of environmental consultant firms, and one losing bidder for the on-call contract said the DOT was acting as if the Maguire Group — suspended from DOT work for two years in the early 1990s for what former Commissioner Emil Frankel called the firm’s “serious disregard for professional ethics” — was the only company that was open for business in Connecticut.

In a letter dated Friday,�Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who had sued Maguire and defunct contractor L.G. DeFelice, urged DOT Commissioner Joseph Marie to reconsider the contract award.

“In light of Maguire’s performance on the I-84 project completely failing to properly inspect the horrific … work of L.G. DeFelice DOT must conduct a responsibility determination of Maguire prior to awarding any contract … In particular, DOT should reconsider its selection of Maguire as an on-call consultant [as well as] Maguire’s pre-qualification status in all categories of proposed work.”

Two articles in the past few days about earmarks just make me think Norwalk goes about the funding process in a dysfunctional way. The Hour reported on the Norwalk Transit District’s inability to get state matching funds for a federally funded project to upgrade the bus hub on Burnell Blvd.

The contretemps outlined in The Hour via a series of memos, is fascinating. Schulman, via The Hour says he can’t get the federal funds because he doesn’t have the state matching funds of $400k. The DOT commissioner says that the federal funds flowed directly the Transit District, meaning Schulman already has them, and that the DOT never provides matching funds for local transit district projects.

Hrmm, could it be that the because the bus hub doesn’t fit into the the intermodal variety, the DOT wants nothing to do with it?

And then there’s the request of $400k before the State Bonding Commission for the $400k that supposedly is in process too.

Meanwhile the House of Representatives Thursday according to Jim Himes, D-4, passed a bill delivering earmarks for all, but here are the Fairfield County earmarks according to the Advocate:

• $250,000 for Darien to develop new affordable housing

• $175,000 for in-car camera technology upgrades for the State Police,

• $500,000 for the Courage to Speak Foundation, a drug-prevention non-profit in Norwalk.

• $500,000 for demolition of the Congress Street Bridge in Bridgeport

• $1.8 million towards rebuilding it Congress Street Bridge in Bridgeport

• $700,000 for Bridgeport’s Total Learning Program, run by ABCD Inc.

• $2 million for the second phase of the Stamford Urban Transitway, a commuter road linking Atlantic and East Main Street

• $2.4 million for the Bridgeport Intermodal Transportation Center, which links rail, local and interstate buses, ferry service, taxicabs and airport shuttles.

So out of federal dollars, nothing for Norwalk really. Yet there’s some substantial need for an intermodal transit hub in Norwalk, since Norwalk contains the Danbury rail spur that services Wilton. There’s even plans in the work, which is so far under the radar, the only reason I know about it is because we have a zoning commissioner that is assigned to study committee. Check out www.sonorailstudy.org.

This leads to the bigger questions. Why are we building anything at Burnell Blvd. when the smart thing to do is create a real transit hub at the South Norwalk train station that serves our regional mass transit needs and connects our downtown and office park areas efficiently? Why is Congress funding Norwalk earmark dollars to the Courage To Speak Foundation when there’s no evidence that this anti-drug program does anything substantiated to reduce drug use by students. A short review of local news stories of drug ring busts that service New Canaan high school students should stand as evidence numero uno that these types of programs are useless.

In the end, the saga of the Burnell Blvd. will continue. And on this latest spending bill it is right to conclude that� Norwalk got nothing. The larger question will just hang out there.

The Courant is reporting on properties that Governor Rell wants to sell. Nothing like selling at the bottom of the market.

Here’s the areas list:

NORWALK

• Route 7 @ Elm St -�0.09 acres
• Martin Luther King – 0.13 acres

GREENWICH

• Ferris Dr – 0.54 acres

FAIRFIELD

• Route 59 – 0.15 acres

BRIDGEPORT

• Daisy Court – 0.07 acres
• Myrtle Ave – 0.18 acres
• West Ave – 0.21 acres

The complete list can be found here:�www.ct-surplus-property.com

It is only fitting to report that when I clicked on the link to the DOT traffic map, it took along time to load. Almost like there was a lot of traffic or something. The Advocate’s Martin Cassidy, of the Advocate,� does the reporting on what the DOT thinks this map is doing for the public.

A highlight:

The map was part of the DOT’s efforts to expand its “intelligent transportation” technologies to give drivers real-time travel information, he said.

“The department has been moving to use technology to help travelers plan their trips, and for us, this is really just phase one,” Nursick said. “We want to provide the traveling public with accurate real-time travel information in the state of Connecticut.”

Right, nothing like real-time information from my computer, which sits in its bag on the passenger seat while I drive around the state. Real time traffic info sort of works off GPS devices. At least they can real-time reroute you once you click on reroute. Of course GPS devices are under pressure by mobile phones that have GPS services like maps and driving directions. The irony is that all these devices, according to CT lawmakers, shouldn’t be used in the car. Distracted driving they call it. Nothing like trying to be distracted in the bumper to bumper 2 MPH crawl that I-95 is most weekdays in the rush hour to Stamford and the rush hour to Bridgeport in the morning and afternoons respectively.

If the DOT actually wanted to provide useful real-time traffic information, they would have abandoned the big green static signs that alert you to the two directional options in Connecticut, North and South, any which way you go, and tell you something useful, like alternate routes, how many minutes it is to the next exit/town and if there’s an accident or construction actually happening. Sure, they have those big mobile signs that cryptically attempt to let you know there’s an accident, or traffic, but they place those in the strategic spots after you’ve already entered the highway system.

Having real-time informational signs on entering the highway would of course make too much sense. As you pull into exit 16, a real-time informational sign could let you now that Westport exit 17 was 10 minutes, and Bridgeport exit 27 was 45 minutes. You could then make a real-time decision about an alternate route, or just know that your commute was now 45 minutes to Bridgeport. Instead the DOT likes to tell you how many miles of traffic there is. About as useful as knowing how many red cars are currently driving on the road.

Part of the problem in why we get such lame DOT technology is because the DOT, despite the new commissioner, Joseph Marie, is still staffed by people who seemingly haven’t ever left Connecticut. If DOT workers ever left Connecticut, they would see that there’s a whole world of real-time traffic technology used by DOTs around the country and in Europe that put the information on the roads, and not in the homes. Commercial software developers will build the applications to deliver traffic information, what the DOT needs to do is build the information infrastructure tied to the transportation system. That means the very unsexy sensors in roads, cameras on roads, and massive grid network connecting all of it to present a real, real-time information snap shot of the system.

When you click on the map of course, you’ll see the same info the DOT has been providing for years, accident reports several hours old. Vague alerts of traffic build up between two exits, and the latest IT busywork project, a new interface to essentially a Google traffic map. Out tax dollars apparently hard at work.

The Courant’s Tom Condon has an interesting article about Bradley airport and the risk adverse thinking that goes into just about every decision made about the airport. Granted, most of us in Fairfield County are closer to the New York airports, so familiarity with the quirks and benefits of Bradley aren’t always top of the mind.

Two tidbits out of the article were interesting, Connecticut’s second largest trading partner after Canada is France. Delta wanted to start a Hartford to Paris flight, but the DOT, which oversees the airport, said no.

Condon lays out the case on why Bradley is noncompetetive with other airports, but you can just apply that to Connecticut overall.

NEW HAVEN — At�a meeting of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Wednesday night it was announced the first pair of new M-8 rail cars for Metro-North Railroad’s�New Haven Line are expected to arrive in Baltimore Dec. 2. The cars are aboard a cargo ship that departed from Kobe, Japan.

Speaking to council members in a Connecticut Department of Transportation�conference room�in New Haven’s Union Station, Eugene Colonese, rail administrator for�ConnDOT, said that after the cars�are unloaded in Baltimore it�will probably require�two weeks to prepare them�before they can�be towed to New Haven.

A total of 300�M-8 cars are on order from�Kawasaki Heavy Industries under a $750 million contract. The first 38 cars will be built in Japan with the remainder in Kawasaki’s factory in Nebraska.

In previous announcements, ConnDOT�said testing the cars will take several months,�possibly allowing some to begin carrying passengers in revenue service toward� the end of 2010.

The new cars will be replacing ones in service for 30 or more years.�ConnDOT has said they�will result in an 18-to-20 percent increase in seating capacity on the New Haven Line.

WILTON — An eight-person coalition of opponents to constructing a new Route 7 expressway from Norwalk to Danbury spoke in Wilton Tuesday morning about why this “dead road,” as one described it, should never be built.

Led by state Sen. Toni Boucher, R-26th Dist., each took a turn in Wilton Town Hall presenting reasons why they thought the state should not go forward with its construction, which ranged from damaging wetlands and increasing air pollution to awaiting the results of widening the existing Route 7 and exploiting opportunities to increase service on the Danbury branch of the Metro-North Railroad.

Identifying it as a “dead road,” Boucher said that after a 50-year discussion, every proposal for the expressway has been scrapped after encountering “oftentimes bitter opposition.” And besides repeated rejection by residents in the towns through which it would run, Boucher said current environmental regulations and road design requirements would prohibit its construction along its proposed path.

“The difficult and dangerous topography of the area and new federal guidelines for highway grades have rendered any proposal for a superhighway in this location so costly as to render it untenable,” Boucher said.

Portions of the southern end of the project were completed in Norwalk between 1969 and 1992, resulting in 3.9 miles of four-land highway connecting Interstate-95 to the Merritt Parkway and continuing to Grist Mill Rd. On the northern end, 9.9 miles of multi-lane highway were constructed from Danbury to Brookfield between 1961 and 1992.

The proposed extension of the Route 7 expressway, also�known as “Super 7,”�would run for about 15.5 miles through Wilton, Weston, Ridgefield and Redding. Of those four towns, only Weston’s First Selectman Woody Bliss has supported building the road.

The opponents at Tuesday’s presentation expressed exasperation that despite numerous town meetings, state studies and a decades-long court fight, efforts to build the road have arisen again.

Currently, the road’s leading proponent has been state Sen. Bob Duff, D-25th Dist., who earlier this month released the results of a survey conducted by the University of Connecticut — Stamford Campus that indicated a majority of support for the proposed�expressway by residents�of the towns through which it would traverse, as well as surrounding municipalities.

But Gail Lavielle, commissioner of the Connecticut Public Transportation Commission and, according to Boucher, an authority in polling methodology, described the survey touted by Duff as being inadequate to its purpose and, “far more disturbing, misleading to the public and worried and frightened people who had been reassured that the threat of having their lives disrupted by an expressway had disappeared.”

Gail Lavielle, Commissioner of the Connecticut Public Transportation Commission

After pointing to weaknesses she saw in the survey’s sampling methodology, Lavielle said, “claiming that a survey like this shows overwhelming support for Super 7 is not only misleading, it’s just wrong.”

Identifying an impediment to building the Route 7 expressway that has not drawn much attention before, John Chew, executive director of the Brookfield-based Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials, said the current widening of existing Route 7 in Danbury is using the right-of-way for the proposed expressway.

John Chew, Executive Director of the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials

With the current project costing $80 million, Chew said no government agency would agree to rip up Route 7 in Danbury after it’s been widened, so, “You can’t reach Danbury with Super 7 � because where you’re getting into Danbury is taken. It’s a valley; there’s no place else to go.”

Robert Nerney, Wilton’s director of planning and land use management, said that, if constructed, the Route 7 expressway “would have an enormous adverse impact on not only Wilton, but I think fair to say, on lower Fairfield County in general.”

Nerney said the ecological impact arising from a project of its magnitude would “significantly compromise” the waterside aquifers and air quality along the Norwalk River.

Robert Nerney, Wilton's Director of Planning and Land Use

Patricia Sesto, Wilton’s director of environmental affairs, said the proposed Route 7 expressway’s right-of-way is largely placed within the Norwalk River valley, which is already “consumed” by the railroad’s Danbury Branch and existing Route 7. The Super 7 expressway, she said, would have little choice but to traverse the outlying hillside of the river valley, which is characterized, in part, by very steep slopes.

Sesto presented a list of hazards to the Norwalk River she saw occurring if the expressway were constructed, and said that in the era when the road was originally proposed, “our knowledge regarding wetlands, habitat and river protection was far narrower than it is today.”

“Given these environmental considerations,” Sesto said, “it is unclear if the highway is still worth the environmental price, or if the path that was proposed four decades ago is even still the best path.”

Arguing that both the federal government and Connecticut are deeply in debt, the first selectman of Wilton, William F. Brennan, said any available funds should be used to improve Interstate-95, “the most overloaded interstate road in Connecticut.” Brennan said the Route 7 expressway would worsen conditions on I-95 by feeding thousands of additional cars onto it.

“For almost40 years (the Route 7 expressway) has been discussed, but never constructed,” said Brennan, “(because) the people most impacted have strongly opposed it, they do not want it, and any efforts to resuscitate interest have been repeatedly defeated.”

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s presentations, Boucher handed out a notice requesting residents and elected officials speak against the expressway at the next meeting of the Municipal Planning Organization of the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

During its September meeting, the MPO reiterated its request that the state conduct a study of possible uses for the right-of-way of the proposed Route 7 expressway. The MPO next meets on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 8 a.m. in the Norwalk Transit District’s headquarters at 275 Wilton Ave. in Norwalk.

FAIRFIELD — With an excavator and bulldozer�behind him as backdrop, Vice President Joe Biden on Monday said federal recovery funds are doing more than�helping cover the cost of reconstructing portions of the Merritt Parkway. Joined by Sen. Christopher Dodd and Fourth District Rep. Jim Himes in a park-and-ride lot at exit 46 of the parkway, Biden said the funds are also rebuilding the country’s economy and its future.

About 300 people attended the mid-afternoon event, which also drew about a dozen anti-Dodd protesters.

Beside repairing infrastructure, Biden said, “We’re reinvesting in getting people off their knees, back to work, but also toward something — a more resilient,�a transformative economy.”

�

Vice President Joe Biden, who said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is about staying competitive in the 21st century.

Biden said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also has saved the jobs of 2,500 educators in Connecticut who would have been laid off in September. The recovery act, said Biden, is more than about jobs, “it’s about staying competitive in the 21st century, so we can lead the world in the 21st century, as we did in the 20th.”

Overall, Biden said, the U.S. Department of Transportation has made available $48.1 billion for transportation projects nationwide.

Himes said the most important thing we must focus on is getting America back to work.

“There’s no better social program in the United States of America,” said Himes, “than a good-paying job.”

Dodd said the American dream lives on in Connecticut because we still know how to build things, and have a skilled and competent workforce.

He said funds from the federal recovery act have saved 41,000 jobs in Connecticut, and the state, he said, is poised to receive another $1.6 billion in direct aid, and an additional $1.3 billion in Medicaid assistance, “thanks to Congress and the Obama administration.” These funds, he said, are going to make Connecticut’s roads safer, more environmentally friendly, easier to drive on and less congested. “We’re going to rebuild this economy by rebuilding our infrastructure in this nation.”

From left, Craig Miller, O&G construction company superintendent, Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Jim Himes on Monday at a park-and-ride lot in Fairfield supporting use of federal recovery funds to reconstruct portions of the Merritt Parkway.

Digressing to the Obama administration’s goal of providing health insurance to nearly everyone in the country, Dodd said, “It’s a shame in America that too many of our people are uninsured and, by the way, we’re going to get that public (insurance plan) option for Americans. They deserve it.”

Craig Miller, the project superintendent for O&G Construction Co. in Torrington — the contractor for the “Safety Improvements of the Merritt Parkway Federal Stimulus Project” — said the project employs operating engineers, laborers, carpenters, masons and Teamsters, with 60 to 70 workers on the job day and night. Including sub-contractors, Miller estimated 100 people will be employed in the course of the project.

Dodd has been receiving low poll numbers and may face a Democratic primary next year. He also recently had surgery for prostate cancer.

Gesturing toward Dodd, Biden said, “This is my single best friend in the United States Congress, and one of my closest friends, period.” The best news of the day, he said, is that Dodd got a call on Friday saying “he is cancer free.”

Some of the protesters carried signs opposing Dodd’s reelection. They were restricted to a location overlooking the park-and-ride lot that was at a�distance where�their vocal protests could barely be heard.