Mr. Stephen Korta
Department of Transportation
2800 Berlin Turnpike
Newington, CT 06131-7546
Re: Southwest Connecticut Transportation Issues
Dear Steve:
Congratulations on your nomination by the Governor to
lead the Department of Transportation and your endorsement
yesterday by the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee.
I very much hope that the legislature will promptly approve
your nomination.
By any measure, i.e., accidents, traffic volume, congestion
and delays, the most serious transportation problems in
the state occur in the Southwest region. I look for you
to put forth bold and imaginative plans to address this
issue. The severity of these challenges, and the significant
drag the problem represents for the entire Connecticut economy,
was highlighted in the report of the Connecticut Regional
Institute for the Twenty-first Century, published in 1999.
The Department’s overly narrow view of its own mission
and consequent failure to address broad gauged transportation
issues were documented in the report published by the Program
Review and Investigations Committee in 2000. Since then
the problems have gotten worse.
The only way to achieve success is to greatly expand the
use of Metro North for both intra-state commuting and ultimately
freight carry. However, the enclosed letter from the DOT
dated March 30, 2004 reflects the Department’s failure
to grasp the magnitude of the problem and the urgent need
for a solution. Specifically:
(1) Rail Cars – The letter indicates the DOT “will
be developing” a plan to purchase replacements for
the New Haven rail car fleet. This 320-car fleet is over
30 years old, with the result that this winter over 25%
of the aging and fragile cars were out of service due to
repairs. A replacement plan is long overdue.
(2) Parking – The letter touches on the vital need
to expand rail passenger parking but says that such plans
have been impeded by local opposition and concludes by saying
that “legislative override of local opposition may
be required”. However, no such proposal has ever been
brought before the legislature by the DOT. Local opposition
should certainly be taken into account and accommodated
wherever possible but the Department must take a stand to
support the principal that individual local municipalities
cannot be given a flat veto over needed projects of statewide
significance.
(3) Capacity Expansion – The letter indicates that
the DOT “supports” expanding “capacity”
on the Post Road (Route 1) and the Merritt Parkway (Route
15). The DOT has never seriously proposed any concrete plans
to do either, nor should it. First of all, pouring more
concrete would simply induce more auto travel, which would
in turn lead to more concrete, and then more cars, leading
to a downward spiral a la the Los Angeles “build roads
and more cars will come” syndrome. Expanding the Post
Road is completely impractical and has never been considered.
Expanding the Merritt Parkway is legally impossible since
it is on the Register of National Landmarks.
(4) I-95 Shoulder – The letter discusses the DOT’s
current project to “use the existing shoulder area
as a general purpose lane.” This should not happen
for three reasons:
(i) The breakdown lane should be reserved for just that
– breakdowns.
If vehicles which break down are unable to pull off to the
shoulder the result would simply be more accidents and more
congestion.
(ii) Local police, fire and emergency medical services
all strongly
oppose the plan since it would limit, and perhaps prevent,
access to accidents with consequent possible loss of life.
(iii) The breakdown lane is inextricably interlinked with
the exit and entrance ramps, so that under this plan entering
cars would have no appropriate acceleration lane, thus ensuring
a dangerous conflict between entering vehicles and breakdown
lane travel.
