Commentary –

Connecticut’s Clogged Traffic Arteries

By William A. Collins

If your highways,

All are filled;

Office parks,

You shouldn’t build.

There was a certain unreality about Connecticut’s recent Traffic Summit. Bloated Stamford leaders were there, seeking automotive liposuction so they could go on gorging themselves on development. The governor was there too, wringing his hands about congestion. This after he had earlier tried to cut back mass transit, and successfully demanded tax rebates which could have paid for some of the needed improvements. Road commuters were also there, wanting someone else to take the train. Then they could continue to drive alone from their wooded estates to their high-paying jobs in the city. Truckers showed up as well, to make sure no one impinged on their various God-given rights.

Luckily there were also a few voices of reason. Mass transit advocates called for more parking garages and shuttle buses at Metro North stations. Freight gurus plumped for more warehouses at Bradley Field, so that our considerable air-freight wouldn’t all have to come through JFK. Quieter voices called for rebuilding the Poughkeepsie Bridge, so freight trains could get to Connecticut once again. More timorous voices reopened the issue of a mass transit line from Hartford to Bradley. Still others suggested opening our weigh stations on a 24/7 basis to discourage thru-truckers. These last voices were later run down in the parking lot by the Motor Transport Assoc.

Somehow, though, no one ever quite got to the most obvious solution of all – to stop building office buildings in Stamford. That city is already so overdeveloped that you can’t find workers, can’t find a home, and can’t even get there. Undaunted, the state just promised $6 million in financial incentives to International Paper to move its headquarters in from Westchester. That’s on top of the scores of millions it has already ladled out to Swiss Bank and other needy firms. This isn’t development; this is obsession.

A similar obsession applies in New Haven. Rather than offer the moon and stars to developers to build downtown, the state has presented those celestial goodies to a mall developer along I-95. Not smart. While there may be some hope of getting office workers on the train, not so with mall surfers. Heightened gridlock is now as sure a bet for New Haven as for Stamford.

Luckily Hartford’s big boondoggle, Adriaen’s Landing, is so ill-conceived that it probably won’t have such a bad effect on traffic.

So what can a poor congested state do? Well this isn’t rocket science. First of all, repeal all development incentives for Stamford, Greenwich, and Norwalk. Second, build parking garages at all crowded Metro North stations, such as already exist in Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, and Bridgeport. Third, open up those weigh stations. Fourth, rebuild that Poughkeepsie Bridge. Fifth, upgrade freight facilities at Bradley, and connect it to Hartford with light rail. Sixth, offer big development incentives for downtown Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford, New London, New Britain, and other depressed cities. Seventh, build more condos in Stamford, so that not so many workers will have to commute.

One solution that has blessedly not been offered is to add more lanes to I-95. Everyone agrees that won’t work. So let’s just let it get worse. When it’s bad enough, commuters will switch to rail, shippers will switch to Bradley, truckers will switch to I-84, and corporations will switch to Bridgeport or Montclair. Government’s role is to make rail and air more convenient, trucking less convenient, and for Pete’s sake, to stop paying employers to move to our most congested towns.

 

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)