Governor Jodi Rell signed a 10-year, $1.3 billion transportation spending initiative in the first week of July. The money will be raised by a gradual 5 percent increase in Connecticut’s gross receipts tax on petroleum products (transformed from a gas tax increase in Rell’s initial proposal) and a $1 surcharge on New Haven Line rail tickets from 2008 to 2015.   It’s unclear at present how much of the total each revenue source will yield.

Rell later said she regarded the funding initiative as her major achievement in her first year in office, and transportation observers also praised the action after five years of talking, bobbing and weaving on the issue by the state government.   During the winter of 2003-2004, many New Haven Line trains were laid low by weather.  Most trains on the line have significantly exceeded their expected lives.  Connecticut starved transportation for investment during the Rowland years, resulting in a situation where many residents arrived at Grand Central on decrepit train cars to see their New York counterparts pull in on newly-purchased trains. 

The plan will buy 342 new rail cars for the New Haven Line, possibly for delivery in 2009, upgrade railroad maintenance facilities, buy new buses and provide over $300 million for highway projects. 

Rell told reporters recently that even more needs to be done for transportation in the state but did not elaborate.

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