The fear of actually solving the route 7 corridor traffic congestion must drive State Senator Judith Freeman-R and State Rep Toni Boucher-R to fits. Why else would a zero dollar funded study proposal send them into lame quotes like these:

State Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, worked to include the study - which did not include a request for funds - because he said traffic continues to worsen as commuting increases from northern suburbs into Stamford and Norwalk.

It took the Senate several hours to pass a Democrat-backed $3.2 billion bond package on a 21-12 vote that fell along party lines. The House passed the bill on a mostly party-line 84-38 vote shortly before midnight.

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In a quick reaction to the growing concerns that Fairfield County was getting ignored by Hartford yet again, Governor Rell announced that the truck inspections will commence at the weight station in Greeniwch. And not a moment too soon. Today I-95 travellers are faced with a beer truck that collided with another truck at 5am between exits 13-14 northbound, and another truck that wedged itself in the Metro North train underpass on the Boston Post Road in Darien.

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Actually, Chris Perone-D NOrwalk, probably wonders about more than the math skills of the CT DOT, but in this case he is concerned about how the CT DOT managed to miss the mark, by more than 100%, on how much it would cost to maintain and repair rail cars. Now let’s think about the timeline for a minute. The rail cars were something that the Governor authorized in 2004. It’s now 2007. The CT DOT is saying it will take $628 million, not $300 million to:

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One of the main contributors to the high number of accidents on I-95 are tired drivers taking to the highway. If you are a truck driver, the potential for an accident is even greater. Each day it seems somewhere along the I-95 corridor through Connecticut, a tractor trailer has been in an accident, affecting commutes and providing a cascading chain of other accidents as people try and maneuver around the blockages.

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Governor Rell should look at this latest CT DOT “communication” issue and whip out the governing ruler and whack the heads of the CT DOT. With much fanfare, Rell press released the idea that a new era of management was coming to the DOT. Oh, have the times changed … not.

he public has not been given enough notice to attend a hearing in Stamford about the reorganization of the state Department of Transportation, advocates said yesterday.

Details about the hearing - which will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Pitney Bowes’ Elmcroft Road headquarters - were posted on the DOT’s Web site yesterday afternoon, about 48 hours before the meeting.

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Okay the legislature is out of session, so these what might have been stories are a dime a dozen, but, I find it irking to the max that instead of talking about the big problems, we get legislators talking about the little problems. Problems like a tweak to the open container law. From Brian Lockhart’s report in the Advocate:

Amann said over the weekend that when the General Assembly reconvenes later this summer to vote on a bonding package, he wants his colleagues to budget additional money for bridge and road maintenance to avoid a deadly collapse like the one in Minneapolis Aug. 1.

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Governor Rell has faith that the many Connecticut residents who travel the orads and rails in the state have important ideas about how the DOT needs to be reformed, or fixed. That is an important step in opening up the discussions past the DOT management centric discussions thus far. According the Advocate, a culture of fear, prevented DOT staff from making decisions. A culture of fear? Who came up with this? From the Advocate:

One speaker said intense public scrutiny of DOT employees could have contributed to some of the agency’s failures and indecisiveness the past few years.

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Governor Rell is right about getting trains from Connecticut to Penn Station. The Northeast economic corridor runs from Philadelphia, through New York, Connecticut and on to Boston. Trying to get from Connecticut to Philadelphia is one of those awkward challenges. Not to mention trying to get to Washington DC from Connecticut etc. Currently you can only take Amtrak, which can be picked up in either Bridgeport or Stamford. Opening a direct line to Penn Station would get you to the New Jersey Transit. From the Hour:

Commuter service from Connecticut to Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station is a “viable strategy,” according to a report announced by Gov. M. Jodi Rell Wednesday.

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Even in the face of life or death issues, Hartford won’t give up it’s addiction to pork. Yesterday Governor Rell and House Speaker Amann sparred over the governor’s proposal to put $100 million into bridge repair. Amann countered with the oh yeah, whaddabout our fix-it first proposal. They coulda been vaudeville performers. Brian Lockhart reports:

“We ignore the fundamentals of our transportation system, roads and bridges at our own peril,” Amann, D-Milford, said at a news conference at the Capitol.

And the skit is on.

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The Courant dove into the bridge inspection story and provides a handy chart detailing the bridges that are rated poor or are at or below the rating of the Minnesota bridge that collapsed.

The Courant reveals that the bridge on route 123 over the Norwalk River received a 2006 inspection ratings on at least three structural areas at or below the rating of the Minnesota bridge. That bridge, according to the chart was built in 1860.

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