The Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board chartered by Governor Rowland and the state legislature to chart a new course for the state’s under-funded and overburdened transportation system appears to be an old-school bunch after all.  Its plan to ease roadway congestion: widen the roads.

A new report by the Board’s “Movement of goods and people working group” says I-95 should be double-decked from Greenwich to New Haven, according to the Stamford Advocate.  The draft plan also calls for widening I-84 and the Merritt Parkway and completing the “Super 7” expressway along U.S. Route 7 in Fairfield County.

Members of the committee told reporters developing additional transit capacity in the same corridor could take up to 10 years, perhaps unaware that highly obtrusive, controversial highway expansion projects generally take even longer.

Many were swift to condemn the scheme.  A strategy board advisory group said it would promote traffic and congestion.  State Senator William Nickerson of Greenwich told the Advocate it was an “anti-solution.” “You’re taking the problem and mathematically squaring it so by the time you’re done, you’d be worse off. Nobody in America has ever drove their way out of a highway problem by building more highways.  ”However, the head of the New Haven metropolitan planning organization backed the idea. R. Nelson Griebel, the Strategy Board’s chair, said not every working group recommendation would receive the Board’s backing.

Still, it’s hard to know what to make of the Strategy Board. So far, its working groups have recommended that the state build or buy more of everything, but have signally failed to identify priorities, develop plausible funding ideas or focus on the sprawl-traffic dynamic that is gridlocking the state.

Report from TSB working group

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