PT Barnum - Commuter Advocate

What do Connecticut’s own PT Barnum and The Commuter Action Group have in common?   Both are “rail activists” fighting for the interests of commuters.

This amazing piece of news about Barnum, a man better known for his circus and menageries, came to me while watching a speech at the Old State House in Hartford.   The speaker was Executive Director and Curator of the Barnum Museum, Kathy Maher.

She explained that Barnum was more than a showman.  He was also a business man (he once owned the local water company) and railroad advocate.

In 1879 Barnum wrote an impassioned letter to the NY Times promoting a street railway be built in New York City along Broadway between Bleecker and 14^th Street, enlisting the support of local merchants such as the Brooks Brothers and “the carpet men, W & J Sloan”.

Back in 1865, Barnum went to Hartford representing the town of Fairfield as a Republican. (Later he became mayor of Bridgeport.)  As he writes in his autobiography, he arrived at the capitol to find that powerful railroad interests had conspired to elect a Speaker of the House who’d protect their monopoly interests in the state.

Further, he found that Connecticut’s “Railroad Commission” had been similarly ensnared by the industry it was supposed to regulate and that one member was even a clerk in the office of the NY & New Haven RR!  Barnum pushed through a bill prohibiting such obvious conflicts of interest.

Then he turned his sights on helping commuters.  Barnum noted that New York railroad magnate Commodore Vanderbilt’s new rail lines (now the Hudson and Harlem divisions of Metro-North) were popular with affluent commuters.  Once Vanderbilt had them as passengers for their daily ride into and out of NYC, he jacked up fares by 200 – 400%.  There’s nothing like a monopoly!

Sensing that Vanderbilt might try to do the same to Connecticut riders on the new New Haven line (in which Vanderbilt had a financial stake), Barnum set to work in the legislature to make sure the state had some control over “its” railroad. 

Just as in Barnum’s day, our transportation future seems to be in the hands of powerful forces in New York.  “Our railroad” is run for us by the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority), a New York State agency answerable to that state’s Governor, not our own.  Though we are Metro-North’s biggest customer and Connecticut’s rail lines boast almost as many passengers than MTA has in its home state, we have no seat on either the MTA or Metro-North boards.

True, Governor Malloy hasn’t been shy about holding the MTA and Metro-North to task when their neglect caused derailments and service cuts.  But hauling the New Yorkers up to Hartford (they drove) and publicly excoriating them in front of the media didn’t win Malloy any friends.

The one area where Connecticut does maintain control is in setting fares.  New York sets its fares and we set ours.  But in recent years Metro-North fare hikes have become more of a “commuters’ tax” used to plug state budget gaps than spent on improvements in service.

As Barnum once said: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Reposted with permission of Hearst CT Media

Trump's Transportation Plan

Though it was lost in all the recent Comey kerfuffle, President Trump has finally released his plans for a trillion dollar infrastructure initiative.  And it’s as disappointing as it is confusing.

There is no doubt the nation needs to spend on repairing its roads and bridges, its airport and railways.  The question is, where to find the money.  And with a Republican dominated Congress which is loathe to spend any new funds, the alternatives to government spending are few.

The answer may come in an acronym… P3, which stands for “Public-Private Partnerships”.  The President proposes leveraging $200 billion in Federal money with $800 from the private sector.

Mind you, this is not outright “privatization” of public resources like toll bridges and highways.  That’s been tried and really backfired.

Consider the City of Chicago’s 2008 selling control of its 36,000 parking meters to an LLC for $1.15 billion in badly needed cash.  The 75 year deal was rushed through in just one day, giving lawmakers little chance to consider its long-term implications.  The city’s own Inspector General later estimated the city under-priced the deal by $1 billion.

Almost immediately the new owners jacked up parking rates, made the parking spaces smaller and reduced the number of handicap spots.  Not only were motorists and citizens outraged, but the reduced availability of parking had a profound effect on business.

Even partnering with private companies on infrastructure deals is fraught with peril as we have seen right here in Connecticut.  Our own DOT got snookered in a P3 to build the Fairfield Metro train station when its developer partner couldn’t get financing.  The CDOT got left holding the bag, paying to finish the station (which still has no waiting room).

Or consider the horrible experience at the Stamford rail station garage where it took the DOT over three years to walk away from a deal they could never close with a developer with financial ties to Governor Malloy’s re-election.

Most government agencies aren’t as smart as private businesses when it comes to analyzing infrastructure for investment.  When government owns the assets they are held for the public’s benefit.  When business comes on board, their only concern is their bottom line.

And even the $200 billion Trump proposes the government will spend will only go to states that can match Federal money with their own.  And we know how little money is left in most state coffers, like our own, to spend on road repairs.

Even Democrats, like Congressman Jim Himes, who were anxious to partner with Trump on infrastructure were disappointed by the President’s plan as it was so short on details.

The one privatization the President did detail was a plan to takeover our nation’s air traffic control system, now costing $10 billion a year.  The concept has worked in Canada and several EU countries and our airways could certainly benefit from a tech upgrade to GPS from old radar-based systems.

But upgrading any of these crucial infrastructures is like changing a fan-belt on a moving car.  At stake are human lives as all of these systems are, as they say, “mission critical”.  There is zero margin of error, especially for our impatient President.

Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media

"The Merritt: Queen of the Parkways"

Sometimes, not changing is a good thing.  After all, Connecticut is the “land of steady habits”.

Those were my thoughts one day driving through the spring foliage on The Merritt – Queen of the Parkways.  What an amazing road.

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, two thousand men began work on the state’s largest public works project, the $21 million four-lane parkway starting in Greenwich and running to the Housatonic River in Stratford.  (The adjoining Wilbur Cross Parkway didn’t open until years later when the Sikorsky Bridge across the Housatonic was completed.)

The Merritt, named after Stamford resident, Congressman Schuyler Merritt, is best known for its natural beauty, though most of it isn’t native, but planted:  22,000 trees and 40,000 shrubs.  And then there are the amazing bridges, since 1991 protected on the National Register of Historic Places.

Architect George Dunkleberger designed 69 bridges in a variety of architectural styles, from Art Moderne to Deco to Rustic.   No two bridges are exactly alike.  In short order the Merritt was being hailed as “The Queen of Parkways”.

The parkway at first had tolls, a dime (later 35 cents) at each of three barriers, not to pay for the parkway’s upkeep but to finance its extension to Hartford via the Wilbur Cross Parkway, named after Wilbur Lucius Cross who was Governor in the 1930’s.  Tolls were dropped in 1988.

The old toll booths themselves were as unique as the Parkway, constructed of wooden beams and covered in shingles.  One of the original booths is still preserved in Stratford at the Boothe Memorial Park.  There’s also a nearby museum (just off exit 53) highlighting the parkway’s construction and history.

The Merritt’s right of way is a half-mile wide, the vistas more obvious since massive tree clearing after the two storms in 2011 and 2012 when downed trees pretty much closed the highway.

Since its design and opening in 1938 the Merritt Parkway has been off-limits to commercial vehicles and trucks.  But as traffic worsens on I-95, debates rage from time to time about allowing trucks on the Merritt and possibly widening the road.  Either move would probably mean demolition of the Parkway’s historic bridges, so don’t expect such expansion anytime soon.

The best watchdog of the Parkway’s preservation is the Merritt Parkway Conservancy which has fought to keep the road’s unique character.  They have a lot of clout.

In 2007 the group won a court battle against CDOT plans for a massive LA-like cloverleaf interchange where the Merritt meets Route 7.  Their latest battle is against plans for a multi-use trail along the south side of the roadway. Costing an estimated $6.6 million per mile, the Conservancy worries that the trees and foliage that would be clear-cut to allow bike and pedestrian users would despoil the eco-system.

So for now, the best and only way to enjoy The Merritt is from your car.  This is one road where bumper-to-bumper traffic can actually give you time to appreciate the incredible natural and man-made beauty.

Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media

"CT Legislature Fiddles While Rome Burns"

Days before a new state budget is due, our legislature seems as dysfunctional as ever.  Rome is burning and our “Neros” are just fiddling around.

To date only seven bills have passed and been signed into law compared to an average 275 in recent years.  Lawmakers debate such crucial issues as bear hunting, playground surfacing and dairy cows, while our roads and rail repairs remain unfunded.

True, it looks like long-debated reinstatement of tolls may yet happen this session, but another potential funding mechanism has been killed before it was even studied, let alone debated.  I speak of the “mileage tax” or VMT (vehicle miles tax).

What could be fairer to all Connecticut motorists than to ask them to pay for the miles they drive?  Unlike tolls, this user-fee could not be avoided.  The more you drive, the more you’d pay.  But take mass transit and you’d drive less and pay less.

We already pay a VMT of sorts every time we fill up at the pump.  But the gasoline tax hits high mpg vehicles (think Prius and Tesla) less than low mpg cars and trucks.  Is that fair?

The VMT idea is already being tested in progressive states like Oregon and has been endorsed by the US Government Accountability Office. It was also recommended by the Governor’s Transportation Finance Panel.  But the VMT idea is DOA in Connecticut.

The State Senate recently voted unanimously to prohibit even the study of a VMT.  Our CDOT was even prohibited from attending a conference on that idea without permission of lawmakers.

The regressive Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) proudly proclaimed that the bill would guarantee “that the study that we know is never going to happen, never happens once and for all.”

The regressive Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) proudly proclaimed that the bill would guarantee “that the study that we know is never going to happen, never happens once and for all.”

Before even understanding how a VMT might work, how much money it could raise and how easy it would be to implement, our prejudiced State Senators have killed the concept in a unanimous gesture of stupidity.

Of course a VMT was unpopular because it had never been explained, let alone studied.  So shame as well on our Governor and CDOT Commissioner for floating such a concept without explanation.

Critics said it would be “big brother” tracking where we drive, though our cell phones and E-ZPass devices do that now without their complaints.  We even submit to odometer checks every time we get an emissions inspection. Privacy is a myth.

Nobody likes a tax they have to pay. Tax the other guy… the trucker, the out-of-state driver, the real estate transferror… but don’t tax me!  Make them pay for my roads.

Hypocrisy, prejudice, ignorance and denial are feeding inaction in Hartford.  We won’t get tolls without the long-promised “lock box” for transportation funds and we won’t get even that without a referendum on a constitutional amendment before 2018.

Meanwhile our roads deteriorate.  According to the national transportation research group TRIP, 57% of Connecticut roads are in “poor condition” which costs state motorists $2.2 billion annually in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs.

Do our lawmakers think we are chumps, willing to pay for front-end alignments and bent wheel rims while they are unwilling to even study a VMT?

Reposted with permission of Hearst CT Media

"Ride Along with a State Trooper - Part 2"

Last week I started telling you about a recent ride-along with CT State Trooper Shawn Mansfield as he patrolled I-95.  It was a real eye-opener to see the road from his perspective as we answered accident calls and pulled over at least one motorist for talking on his cell-phone.

Trooper Mansfield works five days on and three days off.  He gets to bid for his favorite shift, in his case starting at 5:30 am.  He also gets to drive “his” car home each night as he’s technically always on duty.

Mansfield’s car is an unmarked, super-charged beast that easily hit 80 mph as we zoomed to assignments, its hidden lights flashing and siren wailing.  He told me his favorite patrol is to drive in the middle lane just waiting for unsuspecting speeders to pass him on the left.  The day I rode, he sounded disappointed.  “I can’t believe nobody was trying to blow my doors off,” he chuckled.

Our patrol included visits to the DMV in Norwalk and a stop where we walked through an I-95 Service Area.  “I like to be visible,” he said as travelers and shop keepers nodded his way.

But when we were back on the road, the post-rush hour traffic was moving at the usual 70 mph.  “Aren’t we and most of these vehicles violating the speed limit,” I asked?  I wanted to know what the real speed limit is on our interstates and how Troopers choose whom to ticket.

“I can’t comment on that,” he said, noticing my pen poised to quote him.  But he did offer what seemed a logical and fair answer:  “I’m looking to catch the people whose driving might cause an accident.”

In other words, if you’re going with the flow a bit over the speed limit but using your turn-signals and not hogging the left hand lane, you’re probably OK.  But when you start weaving between lanes or driving much faster than the rest of the vehicles, Mansfield will get you.  At least that’s what I think he was saying.

“We can’t use radar on 95.  There are just too many cars.  But I do have a laser speed-gun which is very accurate,” he said.

But the best way Trooper Mansfield catches motorists is to compare his car’s speedometer (calibrated monthly) as he catches up to an offender.  That’s how your speed is most often clocked.

Going too slow or not staying in-lane is also suspicious, often leading to DUI (driving under the influence) arrests.  The Trooper said he’s seeing more and more DUI’s tied to drug use, not just alcohol.

Once stopped, your car can be searched if the Trooper has probable cause… an aroma of marijuana, for example.   If you refuse a search, they can always call out the canine unit whose olfactory skills are finely tuned.  Last January Mansfield says a highway stop lead to the seizure of 10,000 fentanyl tablets, an opiod 50 times more powerful than morphine.

Ending my “ride along” I was duly impressed with Trooper Mansfield, an earnest young man who takes his job of protecting the public very seriously.  Driving on I-95, I even feel a bit safer knowing he and his colleagues are out there.

Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media

Ride Along with a State Trooper - Part One

Shawn Mansfield drives I-95 for a living, occasionally at 120 miles an hour.  Five days a week you’ll find him in his super-charged muscle car, sipping a coffee and listening to his FM radio, driving up and down the highway starting at 5:30 am.  You see, Shawn is a Connecticut State Trooper.

“I love my job,” he tells me during a recent ride-along in his unmarked car as I was squeezed next to his on-board computer and wearing an under-sized bullet-proof vest.

Shawn’s been a Trooper for almost three years following a stint as a corrections officer and six years in the US Navy, including a deployment to Afghanistan.  “Six years in the Navy and I was never on a ship,” he says as we race down the interstate enroute to an accident.

It’s 8:30 am and the southbound highway is bumper-to-bumper, yet he weaves his way through the cars, choosing not to drive on the breakdown lane.  “There’s too much debris there,” he says, adding that he loves to issue tickets to impatient motorists who think the “emergency rescue lane” is their express lane through the delays.

He’s also quick to ticket trucks driving in the left lane.  But his favorite targets are “distracted drivers”, especially people on their cell-phones.  Sure enough, we stealthily pass a Colorado van with the guy oblivious to our unmarked police vehicle.

Shawn pulls him over and the driver immediately ‘fesses up.  “Honesty is always the best policy,” says Shawn, issuing the out-of-stater a $150 ticket for his first offense.  Troopers’ cars even have an on-board printer so they can hand the driver the citation and a pre-addressed envelope.

In the course of four hours we make four stops, most of them accidents… a few rear-enders in congested I-95 traffic, another on Super 7.  In addition to tickets for “following too close”, several stops found unregistered vehicles or unlicensed drivers.  “She won’t be going anywhere today,” he says as we watch a tow-truck remove her from the highway.

Even illegal aliens can get a Connecticut driver’s license, and should.  But illegals have nothing to fear from their interactions with State Troopers… or nothing more than any other motorist.  “We don’t toss anybody to ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement)” he notes.

At every stop Shawn uses his onboard laptop to “run” the license plates of the vehicles involved as well as their drivers’ licenses.  He writes up his accident reports on the scene with his dispatchers at Troop G in Bridgeport able to follow every key-stroke.  They also know his location, minute-by-minute, thanks to the GPS transponder mounted on his roof… the only telltale sign that his super-charged speedster is part of the State Police.

In each case, the motorists involved in the accidents are patient and friendly, some of them even shaking hands after receiving their citations.  “You can be a nice guy and still do your job,” Shawn said with a smile.

But sometimes, he says, he has to break up fights.  Or deal with people who don’t speak English.  “My Spanish isn’t great”, he says, “but one time I used Google Translate to talk with a Korean gentleman.”

Next week, our discussion with Shawn about speeding on our interstates.

Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media.

Stamford RR Station Garage - Take Two

The CDOT is back again with another proposal to demolish the old parking garage at Stamford’s train station and replace it with a new facility.  After the embarrassment of the first TOD (transit oriented development) effort, which languished for over three years before being killed, let’s hope they learned their lessons from past mistakes.

LISTEN TO COMMUTERS:         Commuters want a new garage where the existing one stands, right across the street from the train station, not a quarter mile away.  But CDOT insists the land is “too valuable” and should be developed for public gain.

Last time there was zero public input on CDOT’s proposals.  This time I hope there are many public information sessions and that CDOT will actually listen to its customers, daily commuters who need access to their trains with close-in parking.  This land is owned by taxpayers and they should have a voice in its development.

INVOLVE THE CITY:         Last time CDOT thumbed its nose at the city of Stamford telling developers that this was state-owned land not subject to city rules.  The city responded by rezoning the area around the train station, looking out for its interests.  This time I hope CDOT works with the City for everyone’s benefit.

LIFT THE VEIL OF SECRECY:   In its previous TOD effort the developers’ bids and detailed plans were secret.  The public never saw the specifics nor were they given a chance to comment.  That is just wrong and cannot be repeated.

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS:           So far all we know is that CDOT proposes a 950-1000 car garage at the corner of South State Street and Washington Blvd.  There are no plans so far on its design, traffic flow or how the old garage across from the station will be demolished while still keeping access to the station, the busiest on the line (after Grand Central). 

Both the construction and demolition will wreak havoc on traffic for months, probably years.  There must be a plan to accomplish both with minimal impact on the thousands of daily Metro-North and Amtrak passengers.  But so far, all that CDOT says is “we don’t know” how the work will be done.

AVOID CORRUPTION:      Was it by chance that the previous developer (John McClutchy) just happened to donate $30,000 to the CT Democrats days before being chosen for the TOD project?  Perhaps so, but the later indictment of some of his business partners on corruptions charges did not make for “good optics”, as they say.

While CDOT still doesn’t know what will be built on the site of the old garage, whatever is designed and whoever is chosen must be above reproach and be seen as selected on merit, not money.

The saga of the Stamford garage has gone on since 1983 when, during its initial construction, cracks were found in beams.  And it’s been since 2006 that CDOT has been hemming and hawing about its demolition and replacement.  All during that time the agency has been secretive and arrogant in its deliberations. 

Let’s hope that this time planning for the future of the garage is an inclusive, transparent process.  Commuters, taxpayers and residents deserve no less.

Reposted with permission of Hearst CT Media.