Following a long winter of commuter woe that began with the snow-induced shut-down of much of the New Haven Line’s rail service and culminated with the March 25th tanker explosion that melted I-95, Connecticut’s brain trust has begun again to examine alternatives to the sprawl that has produced ever-worsening traffic congestion, and to transportation policy that has beggared mass transit.

  "The effect of the I-95 fuel oil truck fire on Connecticut’s highways highlights the needs for a viable alternative to our congested highways," Donald Strait, executive director of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, told the New Haven Register.

   In an article highlighting the high economic costs of heavy reliance on I-95, Dan Haar of the Hartford Courant candidly said "We saw how dangerously we lean on a crumbling ribbon of concrete and asphalt instead of finding better answers."  To Haar, "better answers" are policy changes that would give Connecticut, a state with a $150 billion economy, a more diverse transportation system, featuring better commuter and freight rail service.

A recent Hartford Courant commentary by James N. Mason, a board member of the advocacy group All Aboard!, advocated pending three smart growth bills to help curb greenfield development and revitalize cities. The most notable of these would encourage urban redevelopment in CT’s five largest cities by instituting a split-rate property tax system that would increase taxes on land, but lower them for buildings. The others would investigate the future conditions if "every plot of land was developed to the maximum permitted under current zoning" and create a statewide GIS system to track tax, land use and environmental data.

Hartford Courant columnist Tom Condon praised former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist for his book, "The Wealth of Cities," which shows how highways can damage cities and how transportation policy directly affects land use. Norquist is most noted for his decision to tear down an elevated highway and replace it with an attractive 28-acre corridor that stimulated city center development.

In its annual report to the legislature, the CT Commuter Rail Council said New Haven Line service is in crisis, and that a proposed 5.5% fare increase could reduce the "viability of commuter rail as an alternative to commuting by car." In response, legislative transportation committee chair Senator Biagio Ciotto told the Greenwich Times that affluent rail commuters can afford it. "It’s worse on (Interstates) 84 and 91," he said, "where we have no mass transit." If implemented, the fare increase take effect July 1st. v