After decades of building gleaming new highways, which enabled great mobility but eventually induced serious congestion, sprawl and pollution, Connecticut rediscovered transit. The state added or upgraded bus and rail service, with innovations such as CTFastrak and the Hartford Line, and people hopped aboard. Ridership was breaking records almost every year in the last decade […]
Tom Condon
Tom writes about urban and regional issues for CT Mirror, including planning, transportation, land use, development and historic preservation. These were among his areas of interest in a 45-year career as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for The Hartford Courant. Tom has won dozens of journalism and civic awards, and was elected to the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2016. He is a native of New London, a graduate of The University of Notre Dame and the University of Connecticut School of Law, and is a Vietnam veteran.
Posted inTransportation
State sees dramatic drop in traffic as residents ‘stay safe, stay home’
The coronavirus shutdown has brought a precipitous drop in highway traffic — and a couple unanticipated benefits.
Posted inNews
Best of 2019: City Revival — Did We Learn From the Urban Renewal Era?
Many Connecticut cities are seeing a 21st century renewal. Are they getting it right — or at least better — this time?Â
Posted inNews
Best of 2019: Reviving cities must include the excluded
Inclusive growth calls on cities to revive themselves so that all residents benefit, which has been challenging here in Connecticut and elsewhere.
Posted inCities & Towns, News
Louisville: Lessons from a regional city
As Connecticut struggles to shore up its cities, it might look to Louisville — where leaders created a thriving regional city.
Posted inCities & Towns, Economic Development
Lowell comeback: From textiles to tech, and maybe textiles again
Lowell hasn’t spun dross into gold or been blessed by some other miracle. The city of 111,000 has most of the same issues that challenge other urban areas. But it has steadily moved ahead since the 1980s.
Posted inCities & Towns, News
Colleges help drive urban revival, but town-gown relationships can be fraught
Colleges may not have “saved” the cities where they are located, but they advanced urban revitalization.
Posted inCities & Towns
Reviving cities must include the excluded
Inclusive growth calls on cities to revive themselves so that all residents benefit, which has been challenging here in Connecticut and elsewhere.
Posted inCities & Towns, News
Back to the future with transit-oriented development
Downtown New Britain is steadily coming back after years of decline. What’s driving this revival? The bus.
Posted inCities & Towns, News
City Revival — Did We Learn From the Urban Renewal Era?
Many Connecticut cities are seeing a 21st century renewal. Are they getting it right — or at least better — this time?Â
Posted inEconomic Development
A Time For Cities
For the next several months a remarkable partnership of media organizations will take a close look at Connecticut cities. We call it The Cities Project.
Posted inNews
Despite naysayers, Larson won’t bury the tunnel idea
An early concept sketch of U.S. Rep. John Larson’s proposal to bury I-91 and I-84 underground in Hartford and East Hartford. The proposed tunnels are shown in yellow and the existing highways in blue. The cloverleaf intersection would be under Colt Park. An early concept sketch of U.S. Rep. John Larson’s proposal to bury I-91 […]
Posted inTransportation
The electric car comes of age, right when we need it
Imagine you’re mired in heavy traffic on I-95 on a steamy summer day, with plenty of time to study the car ahead of you. Something puzzles you about it, but you’re not sure what. After staring for a long minute, you realize — aha — that it has no tailpipe. It is an electric car. You are tailing a Tesla. If you’ve not yet had this experience, you soon will.
Posted inTransportation
Eat my dust, Maserati
Disabuse yourself of the notion, if your entertain it, that electric cars are elaborate golf carts that can barely get out of their own way. That is not the case, by a long shot. I took a short spin in a Tesla Model 3, driving through the streets of West Hartford and on I-84. I now see why people like Teslas.
Posted inJustice
Henning, Birch push for a new trial in decades-old murder case
Pointing to false testimony by famed state criminologist Henry Lee, two men who have spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder they steadfastly insist they didn’t commit asked the state’s highest court on Thursday for a new trial.