Posted on 01/01/2021 2:14:35 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Public transit services and Connecticut’s transportation building program have been forced to compete for limited resources for nearly a decade.
But if Connecticut is to revitalize its economy in an inclusive fashion, experts say, legislators and governors must embrace both priorities in equal measure.
Without a comprehensive, time-efficient system of buses and trains — and interconnecting bicycle and walking paths — too many workers can’t get to the jobs, classes and other training they need to make the economy grow.
And if a construction industry that has languished since the last recession isn’t allowed to rebuild Connecticut’s aging infrastructure, many low- and middle-income households will struggle — even as commerce remains trapped in gridlock.
“What’s the vision? What are we trying to achieve here?” said Lyle Wray, executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments since 2004.
A decade of meager transportation spending
“We don’t really rank our projects,” Wray said. “We don’t ask which ones are really going to mobilize our economy.”
The CRCOG leader noted that Connecticut ranks middle-of-the-pack in one key transportation metric. According to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based fiscal think-tank, Connecticut ranked 22nd nationally in state and local spending per capita in 2017 on roads and highways.
The state’s Special Transportation Fund spent $1.61 billion in 2019 — the last fiscal year before the coronavirus pandemic struck. After adjusting for inflation, that’s just 21% growth since 2011.
(Excerpt) Read more at ctmirror.org ...
Maybe the money will come from all the swag other nations take from their citizen’s taxes to send to us.
What, other countries don’t tax their people to help us out?
We can use Wolman rink as an example.
They could also complete Route 11, which was originally intended to go all the way south to I-95 near the I-395 exit, as I recall.
There’s a plan in the works to toll trucks. If they toll trucks, they should toll autos, too. JMO.
Or they could just rebuild it privately, but that would cost commuters more than if the government did it.
(Not saying government is better, just saying they’d pay higher train ticket prices, tolls, etc.)
I take it we have bicycle ambulances then?
No idea, but crime is always worse around there and I sure wouldn’t ride my bike to work or walk around there by choice.
Maybe it’s for medical staff to unwind?
I have no clue but they sure as hell should make some smooth roads for their patients before making the lux trails, in my opinion.
I’m sure you have followed how lemont and his supporters have chosen an inside pr firm and paid them millions in taxpayer dollars to push the ‘need’ for tolls. The public overwhelmingly opposes but the quest for more private money going to government is relentless. Every hair brained social justice globull warming argument they can think of gets recycled and pushed through the mill of public opinion...
If those fish-eyed fools didn’t keep diverting money to non-transportation purposes — stealing, to be blunt — then people would trust their new proposals more.
If I were there, I would oppose the tolls, too.
You should have seen the media push, the dead of night last minute power plays, the strong arming, the complete deletion of common sense that went on last year... and they still didn’t get the tolls. I think that was their second big push.. and it failed but they’re gearing up for another round of crony hackarama so expect more business and people to leave the state.
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