The leaders of the legislature’s Democratic majority Monday recommended suspending the state’s public-financing of elections for 2016, cutting social services and retreating from two major initiatives on transportation and municipal aid.
Transportation
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
Stamford parking garage saga takes strange new turn
The nearly decade-long struggle to replace the crumbling Stamford railroad station parking garage has taken another bizarre turn: the Connecticut Department of Transportation now wants to spend $1.5 million and take six months to repair the garage before they tear it down.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Transportation advocates urge ‘lockbox’ despite budget woes
Transportation advocates were certain Thursday they want a new constitutional lockbox to protect planned new state investments in highways, bridges and railways. But they weren’t as specific about how state officials can shield new transportation dollars from a looming budget deficit roughly six times its size.
Posted inNews
Train safety, gun checks, Medicare premiums among issues affecting Connecticut
Congress delayed for years the deadline for implementing a train safety system and passed a two-year budget that will help Connecticut defense contractors and Medicare recipients. Connecticut students received a mixed report card from the U.S. Department of Education, and whether Pratt & Whitney won a big engine contract remained a military secret.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
Traveling by tube (not just in London)
Will the train of the future be a high-speed tube, not a railroad? That’s inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk’s and others’ vision. The concept sounds simple: move passengers in a sealed tube through a series of giant pipes propelled by air pressure at speeds up to 700+ mph. That would mean a trip from New York to Washington, D.C. would take 20 minutes.
Posted inPolitics
Congress moving to prevent disruptions on Amtrak, Metro-North
WASHINGTON — Congress is bowing to warnings by the nation’s railroads, including Metro-North and Amtrak, that passenger service would be disrupted or suspended if a federal deadline for implementation of a safety measure is not pushed back. Congress is rushing to comply. There is broad agreement the deadline should be put off, but there are hurdles.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy seeks new storyline with budget gambit
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s challenge to legislative leaders to participate in bipartisan budget talks is less a cry for fiscal help than an effort to alter a political narrative that’s failed him in recent months, driving his approval rating to a new low.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
Good news and bad news for Metro-North
It’s been a rough few years for Metro-North, what with derailments, crashes and commuter deaths. But it finally seems like service and safety are coming back.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
In praise of the Merritt: the “Queen of Parkways”
A century ago, the only way to drive between New York and Boston was on Route 1, the Post Road. If you think traffic is bad today, imagine that journey. So in 1936, 2,000 men began work on the state’s largest public works project, the $21 million, four-lane parkway starting in Greenwich and running to […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment
With cash for bike trails, new era begins at ConnDOT
The Connecticut Department of Transportation marked a milestone Tuesday as the state Bond Commission authorized $8.3 million in bicycle and pedestrian projects, including $5.1 million to construct a missing piece of the New Haven-to-Northampton, Mass., bicycle trail in Farmington. For the first time, the state is paying to construct a bike trail, the beginning of an annual commitment of $11.2 million.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy vows to up the pressure for transportation ‘lockbox’
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy urged the public Monday to join him in pressuring the General Assembly to support a constitutional amendment to safeguard budget revenues earmarked for transportation.
Posted inPolitics
Malloy, Amtrak, feds vow progress, cooperation on Hartford Line
Washington – Gov. Dannel Malloy met with to Amtrak and federal transportation officials Thursday, and agreed to keep talking about key issues that have delayed completion of a New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line, but this time with less rancor.
Posted inPolitics
Briefly, Malloy takes bus to celebrate and brag
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy took a quick bus ride Wednesday to trumpet milestones in the life of the much-maligned bus rapid transit system, CTfastrak: Average daily weekday ridership is 14,390, and the system just recorded its one millionth passenger trip.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
With Metro-North, some things never change
Train crashes, passenger deaths, grade-crossing accidents, derailments. These are not just the recent history of Metro-North, but events dating back decades. A friend of mine loves reading the microfilms of our town’s weekly newspaper and has been feeding me clippings of all the stories about the New Haven line. The news reports sound all too familiar.
Posted inPolitics
New report: CT traffic is bad — and likely to get worse
WASHINGTON — Connecticut has some of the worst traffic in the nation, with snarls that cost drivers about 20 gallons of wasted fuel and dozens of hours of lost time each year – and things are likely to get worse, a new report says.