Saturday was perhaps not the most groundbreaking news day to announce a major policy goal, but tucked away in a statement about Connecticut landing $145 million in federal funds was this Jodi Rell statement:
“Our commuters need relief,” Rell said in a statement. “And I will not be satisfied until we have created a modern and efficient transportation system in Connecticut that is a model for the nation.”
The small AP item appeared in that Connecticut centric publication, Newsday and also on WTNH. But the rest of the pack, newspapers that is, appeared not to send a reporter over to Rell’s Brookfield home base and ask some follow up questions.
What does Rell mean by model? Presently, one could say Connecticut has a model or two lying around, according to the Danbury Newstimes;
The trains are running again in New Milford, and once again, the old station is alive with the sounds of locomotives hauling freight cars and the clang of crossing gates descending.But this time, the noises aren’t coming from outside the building, which sits alongside the Housatonic Railroad tracks on Railroad Street. The sounds originate inside, where children and adults can watch and operate any of the model train layouts that will be on display through the New Year.
Or maybe Rell was longing for the old timey Trolley system that sure would be handy today.
But clearly Rell invoked national comparisons for a reason, and and if the Rell administration stays focused on delivering real improvements to the transportation infrastructure in Connecticut, our economy will benefit mightily. Asking for clarification would be a good start, but those stories about weddings at Christmas Villages or the details about what to do with holiday trash.
There’s a place for these stories of course, but there should also be a place for the the hard news that government generates. The local Wilton paper, The Wilton Villager, for example, provides some insight on the Danbury-Norwalk rail line.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation [DOT], which intends to increase ridership and enhance train services from South Norwalk through Wilton and north to Danbury, expects next spring to begin phase two of a feasibility study examining the Danbury Branch Line.
“The main goal of the study is to come up with an implementation plan to improve service and attract riders,” said DOT Assistant Director of Intermodal Planning Carmine Trotta, who noted DOT is presently in negotiations with Washington Group International [WGI] to conduct phase two of the study.
The article goes on to suggest that the improvements to the line would reduce traffic on route 7, the current under construction road.
There’s the ripe issue of Super 7, the maligned effort to link upper Fairfield County with lower Fairfield County. Rell should push hard for the highway to be built, and realize that a small subset of people of Wilton should not control the fate of a highway that directly benefits economic engines like Norwalk and Stamford. But building the road alone is not enough. A rail system, more like a subway/metro system should be built as well, allowing commuters to commute in either direction in timely fashion. Stations and station parking need to be built to accommodate the suburban dwellers, but more importantly corporate urban centers need to have non car transportation from the rail/metro/subway stations to their locations. Bus solutions are affected by the same vagaries as car transportation, and the key here is reliable speedy transportation. Critics will focus on the costs, but the costs of not investing in transportation has put us where we are today, uncompetitive with the rest of the nation, as economic development passes Connecticut by.
And these issues merely tap into the Fairfield County centric view of the transportation needs of the state. Rell is right to focus on transportation, but details are needed.
