Posted on 04/23/2010 8:57:54 AM PDT by Willie Green
HARTFORD — The effort to block the proposed busway between Hartford and New Britain picked up the backing of two top Republican candidates Thursday.
“The future is rail — and high-speed rail at that,” said 1st District congressional hopeful Mark Zydanowicz.
Jason Welch, who is angling to snatch the 31st District state Senate seat, said the busway “is not a bad idea. It’s just not the best idea.”
Welch, a Bristol lawyer, is taking on 18-year incumbent Democrat Tom Colapietro.
Welch said that a commuter rail line from Waterbury to Hartford, which would hook into rail lines running to New York City and Boston, is the “common-sense solution” to increasingly congested highways in Central Connecticut.
Larson said he also favors more rail, but doesn’t want to sidetrack the busway because it will help and is nearing the end of a long planning process. Its construction is just around the corner, he said recently.
Colapietro said he remains “very mixed” about the busway project. He said it appears to him that the rail option, which hasn’t been studied yet, “would definitely be more expensive.”
Colapietro said if transportation officials who have talked with him can be believed the busway is less costly. DOT officials estimated Thursday the total cost at $545 million. Other estimates, depending on construction costs and other factors, reach to $575 million or more.
“I haven’t made a decision yet. I’m just trying to make an honest decision,” the senator said.
Zydanowicz said the busway’s cost is “almost inconceivable” for such a short route. It would run a little more than nine miles on a dedicated road between Hartford and New Britain that would use, in part, an old rail right of way that may be crucial to commuter rail’s success.
He said the region already has a bus system in place.
Welch said he would make sure his votes backed commuter rail instead of undermining it. He pointed to a committee vote on a bridge that state Rep. Frank Nicastro, a Bristol Democrat, opposed because it might limit rail options. Colapietro voted the other way.
“Commuter rail will make the district more attractive to new residents, boost home values, help keep critical businesses such as ESPN in the area and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to start and locate businesses here,” Welch said. “All of this means more jobs in greater Bristol.”
Yep, you nailed it. The commie greens have been trying to get us out of our cars forever, so they can control our movement better. No surprise the RINOs would join them.
We need to clean house top to bottom. There will be a Democrat bloodbath this fall that will be for naught if the Republican primary winners are the same good-old-boy jackasses we have had all along.
We need new blood winning the primaries. This means not supporting the GOP party hacks who they always support, instead of the true conservatives.
you need a new, straight (as an arrow) ROW through Harrison NY, Greenwich, New Caanan, Darien, etc.
As if.
Subsidized public transit, nearly identical to subsidized public medical health care.
In my area the bus riders pay less than 20% of the total cost of a trip, the remainder born by non-riding taxpayers.
Over Easter week, my niece tried to use the train from Tucson to Lost Angeles. Unlikely she’ll do that again soon, as she had an unacceptably (over 2 hrs.) long delay to repair track.
With advance purchase, you can fly for less.
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