Familiar Traffic Problems In Connecticut Snare Commuters And Officials

By Peter Singer

Associated Press

CHESHIRE — Tim Deist, a Milwaukee trucker who logs about 120,000 miles a year hauling loading docks from Denver through Texas and to the Northeast, is not impressed with highways in Connecticut.

“There aren’t much things people like about Connecticut, except leaving,” Mr Deist said last Thursday as he fueled his 30-foot-long rig at a truck stop off Interstate 84 near Cheshire.

Unlike motorists in cars, Mr Deist, 51, can’t use side roads because of a lack of gas stations, he said.

Meghan Brennan, 22, travels from her home in Middlebury to work in Southington nearly daily and said, “All of 84 is pretty bad.”

In addition, Interstate 95, which Ms Brennan drove the previous day from New York, is no better, she said.

“I was stuck in traffic through Greenwich,” she said. “It was horrible.”

The two highways — with bottlenecks on Merritt Parkway in Fairfield County and Interstate 91 at Hartford and north of the capital city — have caused headaches for motorists and policymakers alike.

The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), the field’s leading research group, reported that the annual delay per traveler in 2003 was 49 hours in an area that includes New York, northern New Jersey and Connecticut. That was up from 18 hours in 1982.

Delays in the New York metropolitan area were greater in 2003 than in Philadelphia, but less than in most other comparable areas, reported TTI in its recently released 2005 Urban Mobility Study.

State officials have been grappling with transportation problems for years, warning that gridlock throughout Connecticut — particularly in southwest Connecticut near metropolitan New York — undermines the state’s economy.

“Where the most serious daily congestion exists is where economic growth is threatened,” said R. Nelson Griebel, chairman of the state Transportation Strategy Board.

In January 2003, the transportation board submitted to the General Assembly a ten-year $5.5 billion plan for fixing Connecticut’s transportation problems. It quickly ran up against fiscal realities as lawmakers were struggling to close a budget deficit.

The plan proposed dozens of recommendations for expanded rail service, new highway projects, seaport development, and more marketing for Bradley International Airport.

This year, Gov M. Jodi Rell proposed more than $1 billion in spending for transportation, including financing for new rail cars on Metro North’s New Haven line and a rail maintenance facility for trains between New Haven and New York.

The ten-year plan also included money to ease traffic on Interstate 95 between Greenwich and North Stonington and improvements along stretches of Interstates 84, 91, and 95.

It also included $7.5 million for buses.

The General Assembly failed to take up the transportation plan by the end of its session on Wednesday, but Senator Biagio Ciotto (D-Wethersfield), co-chairman of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said he was confident it would be approved in a special session of the legislature later this month.

The transportation board this year also asked the legislature to study whether a toll system could work in Connecticut, how much revenue it would raise, how much it would cost to establish, and other issues.

A computerized toll system would not only raise revenue, but provide financial incentives and disincentives to drive during rush hour or nonrush hour traffic. Transponders in cars also could eliminate the need for toll booths.

But opposition to tolls lingers, says Mr Griebel.

“There are still people who don’t want to talk about tolls because of toll booths,” he said.

Lawmakers could authorize a study on tolls, but it would take time, Senator Ciotto said. “We could bring it up now but don’t let anyone think it’ll come up tonight or tomorrow,” he said.

State officials may run out of options to ease gridlock on Connecticut’s highways.

“You’re not going to build highways in Connecticut,” Sen Ciotto said. “No. 1, we’re a small state. We’re almost saturated. And environmentalists and litigation will hold you back for years.”

The lack of choices also vexes motorists.

Ms Brennan, who is frustrated with jams on I-84, has trouble finding a less-traveled alternate road.

“Everyone has the same idea,” she said.