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News...read of award of contract on Congestion Pricing in CT!!!



STREETCAR REVIVAL?
This page, "MASS TRANSIT," is part of a suite of pages related to transportation;  please visit these others as well:  VISUAL ISSUES explores land use/transportation relationship;  TRAIN SERVICE follows CT DOT matters and New CT DOT page);  better "journey to work" just one thing that might help residents of one small city?  Check out the new design of the exterior of rail cars!  Lastly, is anyone thinking about TRUCK TRAFFIC?
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T A B L E    O F    C O N T E N T S

THE NEW LONDON DAY ASKS...Stamford ADVOCATE reporter muses...

Can viable passenger rail service be revived in this country?
Start date: 7/20/2008 End date: 7/22/2008

The issue

In 1920 passenger trains linked cities throughout the United States and carried 1.2 billion people that year, more than 10 times the population of the country at the time. From that point train service began a steady decline that accelerated dramatically after World War II when the federal government puts its support behind highway and airport construction.

Relatively cheap fuel made it affordable for Americans to travel by cars on their own schedules and to fly between cities. Rail service largely withered and died.

The debate

Many argue that the United States, unlike Europe, made a major strategic mistake to largely abandoned passenger train service. Europe has been dealing with high gas prices of decades, but has continued to prosper in large part because of viable rail passenger service throughout the continent.

On the other hand, Americans are not Europeans, they have a love affair with the automobile and the freedom and independence that form of travel provides. Even at $4 per gallon, it is difficult to get Americans out of their cars.

The question

With the cost of jet fuel putting airlines on the brink of bankruptcy, traveling on trains between cities could prove a better alternative. And as highways grow more congested, how much freedom do autos really provide? Yet the cost of rebuilding passenger rail would be enormous, and getting need approvals very difficult. 


A future that could mirror the past
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Elizabeth Kim, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/28/2008 02:34:46 AM EDT


A light rail system is something of a step back into the future for Stamford, where trolley cars rolled along the streets a century ago.

The first lines, drawn by horses, started running in 1887. An electrified version was installed during the 1890s, extending the reach of restless inhabitants, many eager to venture beyond their suburban confines.

At their height, the trolleys branched out from downtown to neighboring towns and overlapped railroad territory as far as New York.

Depending on the line, fares were 25 cents during peak times and 10 cents the rest of the day.

With their colorful style and clanging bells, riding the cars was a hit with residents. When the line to Old Greenwich, then known as Sound Beach, was introduced, spectators lined the streets and cheered as the trolley rolled by. During the early years, trolley riding became a popular pastime, used to commemorate birthdays and other special occasions.

Despite being credited with fostering the growth of the city, the expansion of the lines was met with opposition, referenced in a Stamford Advocate article in 1895:

"On every account it is an institution to be fostered and encouraged by all reasonable and proper treatment - not one to be regarded as a sort of bugaboo by local statesmen and others who fondly imagine they can gain popularity by hampering and opposing the people's means of transit on their business or pleasure."

The trolleys would run for almost four more decades.  Beginning in the 1920s, they gradually were replaced by buses over 12 years.  When the city's last yellow trolley rumbled into the night in 1933, headed for a barn in Norwalk, few would have predicted the city would one day try to resurrect them.

In 1988, Mayor Thom Serrani introduced gas-powered replicas - buses with trolley car frames - to the downtown. The idea was to entice people to take public transportation by harkening to a sweeter era in Stamford.

Former trolley conductor Steven "Tippy" Belasco recalled those days in an Advocate article that ran in the late 1950s:

"People somehow seemed more friendly in those days,' he said. 'They didn't seem in a hurry like people do today. The pace was slower. I think everyone was happier.'

Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises
NYTIMES
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: June 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — Record prices for gasoline and jet fuel should be good news for Amtrak, as travelers look for alternatives to cut the cost of driving and flying.  And they are good news, up to a point.  Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.  But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand.

Many of the long-distance trains are already sold out for some days this summer. Want to take Amtrak’s daily Crescent train from New York to New Orleans? It is sold out on July 5, 6, 7 and 8. Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 5? The train is sold out, but Amtrak will sell you a bus ticket.

“We’re starting to bump up against our own capacity constraints,” said R. Clifford Black, a spokesman for Amtrak.

The problem is that rail has shriveled. The number of “passenger miles” traveled on intercity rail has dropped by about two-thirds since 1960, and the companies that build rail cars and locomotives have also shrunk, making it hard to expand.

In 1970, the year that Congress voted to create Amtrak by consolidating the passenger operations of freight railroads, the airlines were about 17 times larger than the railroads, measured by passenger miles traveled; now they are more than 100 times larger. Highway travel was then about 330 times larger; now it is more than 900 times larger.

Today Amtrak has 632 usable rail cars, and dozens more are worn out or damaged but could be reconditioned and put into service at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars each.

And it needs to buy new rail cars soon. Its Amfleet cars, the ones recognizable to riders as the old Metroliners, are more than 30 years old. And the Acela trains, which have been operating about eight years, have about a million miles on them.

Writing specifications for bids, picking a vendor and waiting for delivery takes years, even if the money is in hand.

Amtrak is an alternative to airlines along the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, and on some routes out of Chicago and a few in California. But most of its other routes are so slow that people take those trains because they have no alternative to reach places like Burlington, N.C., or Burlington, Iowa. Or they go for the train ride itself.

The railroad carried about 25 million passengers last year and may hit 27 million this year. (That is all intercity traffic; commuter rail, connecting suburbs and cities, is also growing, but that is not Amtrak’s market.) By contrast, the airlines carry about 680 million domestic passengers a year. If Amtrak were an airline, in terms of passenger boardings it would rank approximately eighth, behind Continental and US Airways and ahead of AirTran and JetBlue.

H. Glenn Scammel, a former head of staff of the rail subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the railroad should give up on some of its cross-country trains and redeploy the equipment on relatively short intercity trips, where it could provide enough frequency to attract new business. (Providing one train a day in each direction will not draw many new business travelers.)

But the railroad’s labor contracts provide stiff penalties for dropping routes, and dropping states from its itinerary would hurt its political support, especially in the Senate, where thinly populated states are overrepresented relative to their population.

Scarcity is not all bad for the railroad, though. It has raised ticket prices, so that it recorded ticket revenues of $153.4 million in May, up 15.6 percent from $132.7 million in May 2006. That jump is higher than the ridership increase of 12.3 percent, to 2.58 million, from 2.30 million.

Most of the money came from airline-style “yield management,” using a computer to look ahead, see how many seats are filled, and raising or lowering the price on the remainder. Mr. Black said that while the railroad is not set up to make money, “we’re intended to maximize revenues.”

Profits are unlikely. The Government Accountability Office found last November that Amtrak had received more than $30 billion in federal aid since its creation in 1971, but was still in “poor financial condition,” with extensive deferred maintenance.

When Amtrak began operating 37 years ago, the plan was for it to eventually break even. In 1997, Congress passed a law threatening dire consequences if it did not reach self-sufficiency by 2002.

But by 2002 the mood had changed, and the appropriations have continued, financing losses of over $1 billion a year.

The G.A.O. analysis noted the continued operation of cross-country trains with low ridership and high costs. “The current structure does not appear to effectively target federal funds where they may provide the greatest level of public benefits, such as reduced traffic congestion and pollution,” it said.

Oil costs hurt Amtrak, too. Fuel is projected to reach 11 percent of Amtrak’s budget this year, up from 6 percent in 2004. The railroad is not radically more energy-efficient than other means of travel. Amtrak can move a passenger a mile with 17.4 percent less fuel than a passenger car can, and about 32.9 percent less than an airline can, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

It does save oil, however, since much of the fuel Amtrak uses is in the form of electricity, made from coal, natural gas and nuclear power.

Despite its popularity with passengers, the biggest determinant of the railroad’s health is still the federal government, and in Washington, views diverge sharply.

Last year Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and others won overwhelming Senate approval for a bill that would offer the states 80 cents for every 20 cents they spend on new intercity passenger rail service, the same as the match offered for highway projects.

The House passed a bill with the same provision by a veto-proof margin earlier this month. The bill will soon go to a conference committee, but the White House is threatening to veto it because it wants the passenger rail system to be turned over to private operators.

Some members of Congress think the private sector should play a bigger role, and that that congestion and fuel prices should push the country to trains, but not necessarily to Amtrak.

The House version of the Amtrak reauthorization bill has a provision that invites private companies to build a rail link between New York and Washington that would make the trip in less than two hours.

The Florida Representative John Mica, a senior Republican member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee who wrote the provision, said, “We have no passenger high speed rail service in this country. To really change that, you’re going to have to bring in the private sector to develop, finance and operate the system.” Both versions of the bill authorize bigger subsidies, but Congress is often more generous in authorization bills than in actual appropriations.

Amtrak’s fortunes also hinge on who wins the White House; Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, was a staunch opponent of subsidies to Amtrak when he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Barack Obama, the probable Democratic nominee, was a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill to provide an 80/20 financing match.

Gas prices bringing pain to drivers here, there and everywhere;  Cost is high in the U.S., but much higher in France, Turkey, Spain ... 
DAY
By Angela Charlton,  Associated Press   
Published on 5/31/2008 

Paris - Americans are shell-shocked at $4-a-gallon gas. But consider France, where a gallon of petrol runs nearly $10. Or Turkey, where it's more than $11.

Drivers around the world are being pummeled by the effects of record gas prices. And now some are hitting back, staging strikes and protests from Europe to Indonesia to demand that governments do more to ease the pain.  It's a growing problem in a world that's increasingly mobile and more vulnerable than ever to the cost of crude oil, which is racing higher by the day and showing no signs of stopping.

”I don't know why it is, but ... it hurts,” said Marie Penucci, a violinist who was filling up her Volkswagen to the tune of $9.66 a gallon at an Esso station on the bypass that rings Paris.

As she pumped, she looked wistfully at a commuter climbing onto one of the city's cheap rental bicycles, an option not open to her since she travels long distances to perform.  As oil soars, the effect on drivers can vary widely. Taxes and subsidies that differ from nation to nation are the main reasons, along with limits in oil-refining capacity and hard-to-reach places that drive up shipping costs.

In Europe and Japan, for example, high taxes have made drivers accustomed to staggering gas prices. As a result, plenty of European adults never even bother to learn to drive, preferring cheap mass transit to getting behind the wheel.  Those who do drive are still testing new pain thresholds. And it would be worse in Europe if the strong euro weren't cushioning the blow.

On the other hand, in emerging economies such as China and India, government subsidies shield consumers. But that still means governments themselves have to find a way to afford the soaring market prices for oil.  Increasingly, people around the world are reaching the boiling point - and it's not just drivers.

Fishermen in Spain and Portugal began nationwide strikes Friday, keeping their trawlers and commercial boats docked at ports. In Madrid, demonstrators handed out 20 tons of fish in a bid to win support from the public.  In Spain, the European Union's most important producer of fish, the fishing confederation estimates fuel prices have gone up 320 percent in the past five years - so high many fishermen can no longer afford to take their boats out.

French fishermen and farmers, who need fuel for trawlers and tractors, say their livelihoods are threatened by soaring prices and have blocked oil terminals around France and shipping traffic on the English Channel to demand government help.  British and Bulgarian truckers are staging fuel protests, too.

Indonesians are staging their own protests against shrinking gasoline subsidies in a nation where nearly half the population of 235 million lives on less than $2 a day.

The world is driving more than ever: There are 887 million vehicles in the world, up from 553 million just 15 years ago, according to London consultancy Global Insight. It estimates the figure will be 1 billion four years from now.  In Europe, the high tax burden means crude prices make up a smaller part of the retail cost of gas.

”The pain of a rise in prices is much less in Europe, because we may be paying a lot more here, but the rise in a percentage sense is a lot smaller,” said Julius Walker, oil analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

The United States, with its relatively low taxes, is considered to have retail prices closer to what energy data charts call the “real cost” of gasoline - closely linked to the price of oil.  So as oil prices have soared, U.S. gas prices have soared along with them.  Prices for regular unleaded gas have risen from $1.47 a gallon in May 2003 to more than $3.96 now, a jump of nearly 170 percent. In the same period, the most popular grade of gas in France rose by just over 90 percent - a relatively gentle climb.

Americans are driving less - about 11 billion fewer miles in March 2008 than March 2007, a drop of about 4 percent, according to the Schork Report newsletter. It was the first drop in March driving in almost three decades.

In the U.S., presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton have proposed suspending the federal gas tax for the summer to give drivers some help, although it is not clear whether drivers would actually see much relief.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged the EU to cut its value-added tax on fuel.

Nations that produce huge amounts of oil aren't necessarily in better shape.  Russia is the world's second leading producer of oil, but gas there comes to about $3.68 a gallon - about the same as in the United States, where workers earn about six times as much money.  Much of the Russian cost comes from taxes, which run between 60 and 70 percent. Limited refining capacity and the costs of transporting gasoline across the country's vast expanse also push up prices.

Turkey faces similar problems. It costs $11.29 a gallon there, meaning filling up the tank of a midsize car can reach nearly $200 - enough to give up on driving and buy a domestic plane ticket.

But it's not that bad everywhere.  In China, government-mandated low retail gas prices have helped farmers and China's urban poor but, in a country struggling with pollution, also have hurt conservation. The Chinese used about 5 percent more gas in the first four months of this year than last.

And in Venezuela, long-held government subsidies and bountiful supplies have made the people think of cheap fuel as a birthright. It's a veritable wonderland for gas guzzlers - 12 cents a gallon. Consumers there are snapping up SUVs.  For solutions to the oil crisis, policymakers in less oil-rich nations are looking to Brazil, where ethanol made from sugar cane is widely available to the nation's 190 million people.

Eight out of every 10 new cars sold there are flex-fuel models that run on pure ethanol, gas or any combination of the two.

Rail facility costs exceed DOT estimates by $300M
Norwalk HOUR latest news on this issue
jnewman@thehour.com
February 22, 2008

As Gov. M. Jodi Rell unveiled details on brand new rail cars for Metro-North's New Haven line, the state Department of Transportation revealed that a facility to maintain and store them will cost at least $300 million more than expected.  The department broke the news Wednesday night at a meeting of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, an advocacy group for Metro-North riders in the state.

Judd Everhart, a DOT spokesman, said Thursday the department didn't include certain aspects of the facility in the project proposal from 2005, when Rell awarded $300 million to construct the facility. Engineering and construction costs have also increased since then, making the project even more expensive.

"That project has been increased dramatically in scope," Everhart said, "and if we were to build everything today it would be somewhere between $600 and $700 million, but no decisions have been made."

Original plans for the rail yard did not include a warehouse, employee parking, a facility to wash train cars, security fencing, places to fix wheels and swap out parts and the cost of demolishing the old site, Everhart said.  He stressed that the facility, when completed, might not include all of those aspects.

"That's part of the discussion right now — what do we have to have and what would be something that would be good to have?" Everhart said. "But the governor and the general assembly will be making decisions on how much funding will be made available."

The cars themselves, M-8 Kawasaki rail cars from Japan, were budgeted separately at $2.5 million for each of the 300 cars. Improvements from the older models include brighter lights, a more open appearance, better floor lighting, larger windows, higher seat backs with head rests and outlets in each row.

The first prototype rail car is scheduled to arrive in late 2009, with 10 delivered monthly after that.

Sen. Bob Duff, D-25, majority whip, and Rep. Toni Boucher, R-143, who both serve the legislature's transportation committee, said they had no idea the rail facility would cost more than the $300 million appropriation from 2005.  Jeff Beckham, a spokesman for the state Office of Policy Management, said the office was made aware of higher costs, but he wasn't able to determine as of press time who found out and when.

"We understand that we're going to have to fund that in the future, and we've been working with DOT to identify those funding needs," he said.

Jim Cameron, chairman of the commuter council, said in an interview that failure to calculate the entire cost of the project in 2005 is a credibility problem for DOT.

"It sounds like creative fiction when they come with proposals when they are so undercut in terms of numbers," Cameron said.

Mass transit finds it not easy to be green
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio
Published December 3 2007

Emil Frankel and Julie Belaga are two Connecticut representatives on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's newest green team.

The Westport natives will help the MTA investigate ways to reduce energy waste while developing property near mass transit.  Frankel is a former Connecticut Department of Transportation commissioner and assistant secretary for the federal DOT. Belaga is a former Republican state representative from Westport and current co-chairwoman of the state chapter of the League of Conservation Voters.

Recently, they were selected to join the MTA's Sustainability Commission.  Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line serves more than a 120,000 commuters a day and consumes more power than any other state operation besides Foxwoods Resort Casino, Frankel and Belaga said. It is important for the state to have a voice on the panel, which looks to represent the tri-state area, they said.

"We function as part of the metropolitan region in which Connecticut is a tremendous part," Frankel said. "We have a huge problem of getting people on the train in southwest Connecticut instead of on (Interstate 95), not only going to New York, but intrastate as well."

Belaga, a former Republican candidate for governor and a regional administrator for the New England office of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said it will be a challenge to finish the master plan by the MTA's Earth Day deadline in April.

"It's absolutely critical the people of Connecticut know there are voices (representing them) on this commission," Belaga said. "There's been an impression that Metro-North was always the step-child of the MTA."

Including the Hudson and Harlem lines in New York, Metro-North Railroad encompasses 2,700 square miles of MTA's 5,000-square-mile system, so it is a vital part of the agency, Belaga said.  The 18-member commission was formed in September and met last month, when members created a number of advisory groups that will examine MTA facilities, energy waste, carbon and water use, environmentally friendly contract procurements and transit-oriented development.

The commission has been charged with identifying cost-saving initiatives from greener technologies, MTA officials said.  Joseph McGee, vice president of public policy for the Business Council of Fairfield County, said the MTA has been slow to step up as a green leader but said the commission is a good start.

"This whole issue is very fertile ground for railroads," McGee said. "It's long overdue. They need to be national leaders in climate change."

State agencies and transportation operators have talked recently about going greener, but a lack of money stands in the way, said Karen Burnaska, coastal Fairfield County's representative on the state Transportation Strategy Board and a member of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

"There's been a lack of funding and a need to fight every year to maintain existing programs," Burnaska said. "The focus has been on funding existing services and existing needs," not new ones.

The MTA and Connecticut have initiated some green measures. The MTA invested in buses that use cleaner fuel, wind power and green facilities such as the Gun Hill Bus Depot in the Bronx, N.Y., and Corona Yard in Queens, N.Y.  Connecticut invested in hybrid and fuel-cell powered buses and cleaner-burning fuel. The legislature recently put aside $10 million for development projects that are near public transportation.

They are good projects, but, as evidence of global warming grows, more must be done, Belaga said.

"The MTA is saying let's go the extra mile," she said. "Now that we got a real crisis worldwide, the time is really now."
What is "T.O.D.?"
Fighting sprawl with urban density
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published October 6 2007

FAIRFIELD - A photograph of post-World War II Berlin flashed, followed by modern photos of Detroit after urban sprawl.  The damage and destruction to both cities is similar, according to New Haven architect Robert Orr.

"More than 60 percent of the buildings are gone, but the pavement has increased," Orr said, flashing more photos from around the country of once-densely populated communities that have been struck down by poor development plans, leading to urban sprawl. "We're trying to put people back in the picture."

Cutting back on pavement and placing focus on developing more densely populated communities centered around mass transit was the theme of yesterday's "Next Stop" symposium on Transit Oriented Development.

The event, organized by the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects, brought more than 100 engineers, architects and business leaders to the Pequot Library in the Southport section of Fairfield.

It was the second Transit Oriented Development-themed conference to be held in lower Fairfield County in the past month. Last month, the South Western Regional Planning Agency organized a similar event in Stamford.

Orr, one of five architects who helped design the Southport Green business and housing development, within walking distance of the train station, was impressed how more developers and towns are embracing Transit Oriented Development.  But huge challenges remain in states like Connecticut that prevent that style of building from becoming the norm, he said.

While comparing the fuel efficiency of a hybrid automobile to a large sport utility vehicle, Orr flashed two additional photos, challenging participants to determine which car was ultimately better for the nation's oil crisis - an SUV in a densely populated village, where everything is in walking distance and driving is not a daily requirement, or a hybrid car that travels from Trumbull to lower Fairfield County every day.

"This picture," Orr said of the Fairfield County map showing the hybrid's route, "is enabling this craziness."

People living within walking distance of transit are usually five times as likely to use it, said keynote speaker Shelley Poticha, president and chief executive officer of Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development in Oakland, Calif.  But there is not enough transit available and the service is not always convenient for busy schedules, she added.

"Commuting is only abut 20 percent of the trips we take," Poticha said. "To deal with congestion, you have to look at all those other trips."

Some solutions are not always expensive ones that require a lot of land, she said.  Many cities are starting to use streetcars with tracks in the streets, Poticha said.
Transit agencies must create more incentives to make existing services more enjoyable.  Amenities such as wireless Internet access and hangers for dry cleaning would greatly improve mass transit and make commuters miss their cars less, Poticha said.

Municipalities also have to stop thinking of "density" as a dirty word.

"The way we've been talking about density for the last 20 years has done a real disservice to the cities," Poticha said. "The minute you start talking about 'dwelling units per acre' you're doomed."


Wire to wire: Train line to Stamford was transformed from steam to electricity a century ago
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published September 2 2007

Editor's note: This is the first of two parts

A new kind of train arrived in Stamford on Dec. 5, 1907. The slower, less reliable steam-powered train sets had been replaced with groundbreaking electric trains, capable of getting commuters and travelers on the New York, New Haven and Hartford rail line between New York City and Stamford in 50 minutes.

The train left Grand Central Terminal at 9:09 a.m. and arrived at Stamford at 10:29 a.m. That it arrived one minute late appeared to be the only reported problem.

"Everything worked lovely," Hoge Gilliam, a railroad superintendent, told The Advocate at the time.

Interviews with passengers revealed the ride was smoother than a steam locomotive and spared the distractions of soft coal smoke and cinders. They also marveled at how the electric train seemed to accelerate and decelerate so quickly.

By 12:18 p.m., the first train back to New York left the Stamford station with about 100 passengers. The train carried mainly summer vacationers, with a few commuters from Stamford and Greenwich, The Advocate reported.

The electric service, which began along the New Haven Line a few months before the first Stamford train - in New Rochelle, N.Y., that July and at Port Chester, N.Y., in August - marked a landmark development for the region's railroad that helped bring ridership to peak levels. Only a few years later, the rise of the automobile and increasing mismanagement issues caused commuting numbers to plummet.

The New Haven's electrification also introduced a new kind of technology, alternating current, or AC, that made the railroad a pioneer in its era. It enabled the railroad to run long-distance trains at higher speeds. The system, with some modifications, still exists today.

Battle of the currents

The desire for an electrified railroad actually arose from necessity and tragedy. In January 1902, a steam-powered New York Central train from White Plains, N.Y., crashed into the rear of a New Haven train out of Danbury while it was sitting in New York's Park Avenue Tunnel. The collision, which was caused by visibility issues from coal smoke in the tunnel, killed 15, and led to a New York state law that prohibited steam locomotives in the tunnel by 1908.

The New York Central and the New Haven Lines used the tunnel to get to Grand Central, so both were charged with electrifying their fleet if they wanted to reach Grand Central after 1908.

"If they didn't electrify, they would have lost their business," said Michael Vitiello, an employee of Metro-North Railroad, which now operates the New Haven Line.

The new law was a catalyst for electrification, but there was also a need for faster, more efficient trains to take an increasing passenger load into New York. By 1905, the New Haven Line was carrying more than 63 million passengers, up 20 million riders from a decade earlier.

"They had to more efficiently manage the traffic," said Branford resident Jack Swanberg, a railroad historian and author of the out-of-print book "New Haven Power." "There was no alternative (but to electrify). The only alternative was horse and buggy."

New York Central, which ran trains on Metro-North's current Hudson and Harlem lines, adopted a third-rail, direct current, or DC, system pushed by the General Electric Co.

The system was used by other railroads in London and Paris and was recommended by New York Central's Electric Traction Committee.

It was assumed New Haven, which needed to power a 21.5-mile stretch between Stamford and Woodlawn before joining New York Central's route into Grand Central, would do the same. New Haven also had experience handling third-rail DC power since 1895, on its small Nantasket Beach branch in Massachusetts.

But New Haven went in a different direction. Studies of an 11,000-volt, 25 cycles per second AC system, powered by overhead catenary wires, showed it could be more suitable for long-distance, higher-speed travel.

Pushed by George Westinghouse of Westinghouse Electric Co., New York Central shied away from AC because there was not a record of success.

"It has not demonstrated its ability to start under load as efficiently or to accelerate a train as rapidly as the direct current motor," said Bion Arnold, an expert on the traction commission, according to Fairfield University professor Kurt Schlichting's book "Grand Central Terminal."

In a series of public letters, Westinghouse escalated the "battle of the currents," belittling Frank Sprague, an outside electrical consultant for New York Central who preferred DC. Westinghouse also argued that overhead wires, which were 18 to 22 feet above ground, were safer for railway workers in yards compared with the third rail.

"It was a corporate rivalry between Westinghouse and GE," Schlichting said in an interview with The Advocate. "And from what I've read, (Westinghouse) was a very forceful personality."

He was forceful enough to persuade the New Haven Line.

Construction begins

Construction of the catenary wire system began in September 1905, though overhead wires at lower voltages had been used for trolley systems around the state.

For electricity, unlike third rail, which requires a number of substations along the railroad's right of way in order to provide power, the New Haven Line needed just one station to energize its AC catenary. Earlier in 1907, the New Haven opened a coal-fired, steam turbine power plant in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich.

The plant was built on a 13-acre tract at the junction of the Mianus River and the Long Island Sound, where it stood until its demolition in 2001, after closing in 1986.

In its later years, the plant was plagued by an inability to generate enough power for rush-hour trains and the pollution it produced, but at the time of its construction, the Cos Cob plant was a technological marvel. It was the first time a railroad had its own electric-generating plant.

Some ingenuity also was needed to construct the overhead wires. The single, low-voltage trolley wire was deemed unsuitable for trains running at significantly higher speed. To counter the inevitable wire sag associated with catenary, the railroad designed triangular catenary, enjoining the messenger wires with three pieces of 3/8-inch steel gas pipe. The triangles made the wire too rigid, a problem the railroad needed to address within the next year.

Failure, expansion

By the time the Cos Cob plant was operational in 1907, the railroad was already looking to expand its newly electrified system. But within a year, there were so many issues with the overhead wires, the railroad was nearly shut down so repairs could be made.

The copper wire used for the catenary was too flimsy and started to wear out. The New Haven Line had to either completely remove the wire or find another way to rebuild it without interrupting service.

The railroad succeeded again, designing new wire using a combination of cambium and steel. Instead of removing the copper wire, they added the new wire below the old one. Service was uninterrupted.

The steel-pipe triangles also were problematic. In extremely cold temperatures, catenary tends to stiffen, and in extreme heat, wires will sag.

The rigid triangle prevented the wires from bending or stiffening naturally, creating an unsightly "wave effect," that led to wire breaks, said Robert Walker, director of operating capital projects and a former power department chief for Metro-North Railroad.

The triangles would be improved when the railroad expanded its electrification to New Haven and the Harlem River branch - now the Hell Gate route Amtrak uses between New Rochelle and the Bronx.

The railroad used a floating "I-beam" style catenary, featuring wires running parallel atop each other. The triangles remained in the areas where they were installed until Metro-North Railroad began replacing them about 20 years ago.

Despite some of the engineering problems, Westinghouse's AC vision was hailed as a success.

A September 1913 edition of the New Haven Railroad News called the technology "another example of the daring and ingenuity of American business enterprise and a further proof of New England shrewdness."

Within 20 years, nearly the entire region between Stamford and New Haven was electrified.

The New Canaan branch between New Canaan and Stamford was electrified by 1908; the Harlem River Branch by 1912; east to New Haven by 1917; and the Danbury branch between Danbury and Norwalk by 1925.

Growth, then decline

Traffic was increasing on the New Haven Line regardless of electrification. But electric trains enabled the railroad to offer more service at a higher frequency.

By 1924, one out of 10 passengers using standard railroads were using the New Haven Line, according to a Westinghouse Electric publication from the same year. About 150 New Haven trains left Grand Central daily.

Between 1916 and 1923, ridership on the New Haven jumped nearly 50 percent - from 11.4 million passengers in 1916 to 17.6 million in 1923.

To handle the power load, a second power plant was built along the Harlem River branch in the West Farms section of the Bronx in 1915.

In a 1957 edition of Along the Line, a newsletter distributed to New Haven Line employees, the railroad credited the 50th anniversary of its electrification for helping the area around Grand Central in Manhattan become affluent.

In the suburbs, "the exact dollars-and-cents total of the increase value to property which has been created by the electrification . . . probably never could be accurately stated, but it certainly is well up in the hundreds and millions of dollars, and probably even tops a billion dollars," the article said.

The railroad praised the "quietness and cleanliness" of the electric railroad with promoting housing development close to the rail line.

But by the time the railroad was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its high-powered achievement, the New Haven Line was starting to sink.

The construction of Interstate 95 in the 1950s took passengers away from the railroad.

"The thruway runs so close to the railroad line . . . industrial development capable of generating a substantial amount of rail traffic is hampered," a November 1960 Interstate Commerce Commission report read.

Meanwhile, the Cos Cob plant continued to fail, and railroad officials were concerned "Cos Cob might pop," according to the commission's report. In 1961, because of mismanagement, the first part of the New Haven railroad, the Danbury branch, was de-electrified.

And the overhead wires were only getting older and needed to be replaced. It left behind a mess that the New Haven Line's current operator, Metro-North Railroad, needed to deal with.

"We were stuck with what our predecessors left us," Walker said.
Wire to wire: Metro-North stands by century-old system as it replaces its electrical lines
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published September 3 2007

Editor's note: This is the second of two parts

It takes a lot of juice to power the trains. During the morning commute alone, the Connecticut side of Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line draws about 30 megawatts of power, making the railroad the state's second biggest electricity user behind Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Some of that power is still being drawn from wiring and equipment erected 100 years ago.

Metro-North is working to change that. Since 1993, the railroad and the state Department of Transportation have been incrementally replacing the overhead catenary wires used by New Haven Line trains. These wires were installed as part of its state-of-the-art high-voltage alternating-current power system that went online between Woodlawn, N.Y., and Stamford in the summer and fall of 1907.

The New Haven Line was considered a pioneer for using this kind of electrical power, which promised and delivered higher speeds and more efficiency than its steam-powered predecessors, and the lower-voltage, direct current, third-rail power adopted by New York Central's Hudson and Harlem lines.

But the strain on the New Haven Line's landmark system has never been greater. Ridership is at its highest point since company mismanagement and the rise of the state's highway system nearly sunk the railroad 50 years ago. The New Haven Line's wires and tracks are also shared by the regional rail service Amtrak and its high-speed Acela train, which travels as fast as 120 mph on sections between Greenwich and New York City.

"These decisions made over 100 years ago are still with us today," said Kurt Schlichting, a Fairfield University professor and author of "Grand Central Terminal."

Parts of the New Haven Line's electrification system have changed dramatically since 1907. The coal-powered plant in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, designated a National Historic Engineering Landmark because of its breakthrough in engineering achievements, closed in 1986 because it could no longer produce enough electricity to power the line. It was demolished 15 years later.

The overhead wires on the Danbury branch between Danbury and South Norwalk were removed in the 1960s for political and financial reasons, creating an antiquated commuting experience still experienced today for passengers on the vital branch line.

As the old overhead wires on New Haven Line's main line start disappearing and new ones appear, Metro-North is still looking for ways to refine and improve the vision of Westinghouse Electric Company's George Westinghouse, who 100 years ago fought vociferously for the current electrical system despite loud objections from rival railroads.

Constant tension

About 20 years ago, Robert Walker, director of operating capital projects and a former power department chief for Metro-North Railroad, was investigating ways to improve the overhead catenary wire on the New Haven Line.

The wires, primarily installed from 1907 to 1914, were prone to snapping in extreme temperatures. When the weather was too cold, the wires would become rigid. When the weather was hot, they would sag and could get caught on the rail car's pantograph, the arm that draws power from the catenary.

The answer was a new kind of catenary called "constant tension" being used on British railroads. Constant tension used weights and pulleys attached to the wires and poles to help compensate for sagging and restriction.

"It was state-of-the-art," Walker said. "The tension would remain the same despite the weather with weights and pulleys. That way, the system is stable."

In the early 1990s, Metro-North Railroad started removing the triangular catenary - the original 1907 wires that were enjoined by three-eighths of an inch steel gas pipes, forming a triangle. By December 1993, the new constant tension wiring had been installed between Pelham, N.Y., and the Connecticut state line.

By 2002, Connecticut's DOT started removing its own catenary. The $300 million project started with the removal of triangular catenary between Greenwich and Stamford, which was finished in May 2005. DOT then moved to a section between Stratford and New Haven, which housed catenary from about 1914. That project was completed in February.

The remaining catenary between Stamford and Stratford is under construction and should be completed by 2014.

Besides the replacement of the New Haven Line's 30-year-old rail car fleet, the catenary program is considered to be a key project that could lead to improved and more frequent service.

When asked about improving train service during a meeting of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, George Walker, Metro-North's vice president of operations, said, "I've got the rail, I just need the catenary."

Results show

The results of the catenary replacement project are small but noticeable. On-time performance on the New Haven Line's inner portion, between Stamford and Grand Central Terminal, has sat at 97.7 percent to 97.9 percent since the new wires went up, compared with 96.9 percent to 97.4 percent in the years preceding the new catenary.

On the line's outer portion, between Stamford and New Haven, where there is less new catenary, the on-time performance has remained at 95 percent to 96 percent the past seven years, according to Metro-North.

The results are not reflected by on-time performance alone, Walker said.

In areas where there is new catenary, the railroad uses a three-year inspection cycle, compared with an annual inspection in areas with the old wires, he said.

The new wire also enables the railroad to cut back on its weather-related speed restrictions. With the old wires, whenever the weather was hotter than 90 degrees or below 25 degrees, the trains would run as much as 30 mph slower.

Catastrophic incidents can still result after wires are torn down. Earlier this year, about 80 trains and 59,000 commuters were delayed when a pair of rail cars tore down wires outside the Cos Cob station. The incident took nearly two hours to rectify.

Even that is an improvement, Walker said.

"When we do get an incident that tears the new wire down, we can put it back up at least 50 percent quicker because the new system has less components that are easily fixed or replaced in less time by our crews," he said.

Without electricity

As the DOT and Metro-North continue to upgrade areas that have electrical power, they also have to address parts of the railroad that have been de-electrified.

During the New Haven Line's electrical age, no rail line has regressed as much as the Danbury branch. It was first electrified in 1925, but by the 1950s, railroad President Patrick McGinnis decided to sell the wires for revenue. For service, the railroad used newly purchased FL9 locomotives, which were diesel-powered and equipped to run on the third-rail portion of the railroad between Pelham and Grand Central.

The Danbury branch has never been the same. The diesel engines take longer to accelerate and affect the line's on-time performance. This past year, the 6:52 a.m. train out of Danbury was cited as the most frequently late train on the New Haven Line, arriving on time 88 percent of the time.

The line also has suffered because the electric cab cars used on New Haven mainline and the New Canaan branch are not compatible with the unelectrified area. So if there are equipment problems on the Danbury branch, it can't receive help from the other lines.

Rodney Chabot, a New Canaan resident who grew up riding the Danbury branch when it was electrified, is still outraged by the decision to remove the catenary.

"It was working beautiful," said Chabot, a former chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council. "The diesels have been a failure."

Chabot and other rail historians are convinced that in addition to the funds received for selling the wires, the catenary was removed to justify the purchase of the FL9s.

DOT has had plans to improve the Danbury branch for years, but little, outside of studies, has occurred. The first phase of the most recent study, which was completed last year, determined the line could be improved if it was signalized and electrified again. Many of the improvements would cost about $200 million, though ridership would nearly double from its current 1,000 riders a day.

Electrification's legacy

Rail historians and engineers have long praised Westinghouse's vision. But even 100 years later, New Haven Line operators have combated complications because of the decisions of their predecessors.

During the winter of 2004, so many of the New Haven Line's antiquated rail cars were out of commission for repairs that the period was dubbed the "winter of woe." While Metro-North's other lines, Hudson and Harlem, which are owned by New York, were enjoying new rail cars that were running without as many problems, that equipment could never be transferred to the New Haven Line because it doesn't run on an alternating current system using overhead wires.

Service delays involving the third rail are often less severe, Walker said.

"When we have incidents (with the catenary), it often affects adjacent tracks," shutting down more available tracks for service, he said. "With third rail, it's usually on track and it's an independent problem, so it doesn't affect service as much."

These issues have resulted in cries to extend the third rail that exists south of Pelham all the way to New Haven. These requests have generally been rejected because of expense, and because Amtrak, which runs along the entire Northeast corridor, would still need the catenary.

Ordering new rail cars also has been a complicated process because they require compatibility with overhead wires and the third rail into Grand Central.

"The New Haven Lines cars were the first ones to require that (dual power) and have maintained their reputation as being the most complicated commuter cars in the world," Walker said.

But the railroad still stands by Westinghouse's vision.

"The decisions that were made were the right decisions," Walker said.

A Turning Point for Transit
NYTIMES       
By KEN BELSON
Published: January 6, 2008

YOU don’t need Nostradamus to know that traveling to work, visiting Manhattan to catch a play or heading to the shopping mall is going to get more expensive in 2008.

Weekly and monthly passes on the Long Island Rail Road will rise as much as 4.3 percent in 2008.
Not only are gasoline prices heading toward new highs, but bridge, tunnel and highway tolls, as well as fares on New York’s subways and commuter train and bus lines, are going to climb this year.

This confluence of increases comes as record numbers of passengers in the metropolitan area are taking mass transit. Yet the agencies that operate the transportation systems are having difficulty finding the money to expand service and upgrade facilities, so they are asking drivers and riders to pay more.

The toll and fare increases, though, will close only part of the financing gap, so lawmakers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are expected to wrestle with the thornier problem of how to pay for long-term transportation needs.

“This is going to be a pivotal year,” said Martin E. Robins, the director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University’s school of planning. “The questions of cost and finance are intertwined.”

The most critical decisions may be made in New Jersey, where the Transportation Trust Fund, which maintains and upgrades the state’s highways, is on financial life support. To replenish the fund and tackle the state’s ambitious list of transportation projects, Gov. Jon S. Corzine, in his State of the State address on Tuesday, will unveil the details of a plan to refinance New Jersey’s toll roads.

The governor is expected to propose starting a public corporation that would issue bonds backed by future toll increases. The proceeds from the bonds could help reduce debts and finance the widening of the New Jersey Turnpike and other multibillion-dollar initiatives.

What is not known is how high the tolls on the turnpike and the Garden State Parkway — and possibly the state’s gasoline tax — would rise to pay for all of this.

Toll increases also await drivers who use the tunnels and bridges that span the Hudson River and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s crossings in New York City. Riders on Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, and private bus lines in New Jersey and Westchester, will feel the pinch, too, because of their own fare increases.

All this comes as a state commission in New York considers ways to reduce traffic in Manhattan, including a proposal by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to charge $8 to drive south of 86th Street. Even if the commission balks at that element of the plan later this month, it could still endorse introducing tolls on the four East River crossings — the Brooklyn, the Manhattan, the Williamsburg and the Queensboro Bridges.

An equally large question mark faces passengers at the region’s three largest airports. Fares have risen during the past few months as airlines passed along their higher fuel costs. But a federal plan aimed at relieving congestion at Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International Airports could drive prices higher, too.

Wherever prices are headed, though, transportation analysts say passengers and drivers will see only marginal improvements in service next year.

“In a nutshell, you have more people needing to use more facilities,” said Jeffrey M. Zupan, a senior transportation fellow at the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit New York, New Jersey and Connecticut policy group. “You have to provide more service, yet you don’t have enough funds, so you have to raise prices with no guarantee you’ll get an improvement.”

Tunnels and Bridges

Spring is a time of renewal or, in the case of drivers traveling in and out of New York City, a time of recalibration. On Friday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was expected to vote on its proposed toll increases on its Hudson River crossings. The changes, if approved by the Port Authority’s board, will be put in place in March or April.

Under the proposal, drivers paying cash would be charged $8, instead of the current $6, to use the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and the bridges to Staten Island.

But the 80 percent of drivers who use E-ZPass during peak hours would lose their current $1 discount compared to cash and pay the same $8 as cash customers. To relieve congestion, E-ZPass users who drive the crossings outside the peak hours of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and 12 to 8 p.m. on weekends, would pay $6, a $2 discount.

The Port Authority, which has not raised tolls since 2001, said the increases would help finance its 10-year, $30 billion capital plan, which includes billions of dollars to rebuild the World Trade Center, overhaul the PATH train system and help pay for an additional rail tunnel into Pennsylvania Station from New Jersey.

“With road and rail networks already stressed, we must invest now to provide security, maintain our bridges and tunnels, improve mass transit and reduce congestion,” said Anthony R. Coscia, the Port Authority’s chairman.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not standing pat either. This spring, drivers with an E-ZPass who use the Brooklyn Battery and Midtown Tunnels and the Throgs Neck, Triborough, Verrazano-Narrows and Whitestone Bridges will pay $4.15, up from $4. Those paying cash will soon pay $5, instead of $4.50.

The increases, which will be accompanied by higher fares on the authority’s subways and commuter lines, are about half of what was initially proposed.

Highways

The big question for drivers in New Jersey is how much money Governor Corzine hopes to raise in his highway rebonding program. The more money he seeks, the higher and faster tolls are expected to increase.

Corzine has warned that drivers could be hit with substantial increases. His commissioner of transportation, Kris Kolluri, said tolls would need to rise by at least 45 percent just to cover the cost of repairing bridges (estimated at $13.58 billion) and widening the turnpike between Exits 6 and 9 (estimated at $2 billion). Because construction costs are growing, tolls could rise even faster to cover the expenses.

Fearing a backlash from voters, some New Jersey state legislators, including Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski, a Democrat of Middlesex County who is chairman of the powerful Transportation and Public Works Committee, have argued that raising the gasoline tax may distribute the burden more fairly.

Riders in eastern New Jersey, he said, rely on toll roads more than residents in the western part of the state, but everyone pays for gasoline. Besides, New Jersey’s gas tax is the third lowest in the country and has not been increased in two decades. Adjusted for inflation, the tax has declined more than 40 percent since 1988, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a commuter advocacy group.

Tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike, by contrast, were last raised in 2003, when drivers using cash were forced to pay 20 percent more.

Mr. Wisniewski and other lawmakers have proposed that an increase in the gas tax — now 14.5 cents a gallon — replace a large toll increase or be coupled with a smaller one.

As New Jersey waits, New Yorkers are girding for a toll increase on the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway. Drivers using E-ZPass would receive a smaller discount compared to cash. The New York State Thruway Authority has also proposed 5 percent toll increases in 2009 and 2010, saying the extra cash is needed to pay for its $2.1 billion highway and bridge improvement plan.

Crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge would also cost a dollar more, or $5.

Commuter Rail and Bus Lines

Transportation analysts often note that prices for riding mass transit have gone up faster than highway and bridge tolls over the past few decades. But train and bus operators are also paying more for fuel, labor and land.

With some fanfare, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said in November that it had found $220 million more than projected in its budget, obviating the need to raise fares as high as initially anticipated.

“The revised proposal responds to what we heard from the public while returning the $220 million to customers using each of our operating agencies,” said Elliot G. Sander, the authority’s executive director and chief executive.

Under the new plan, $2 single-ride tickets — which just 15 percent of riders buy — would not change. But bonuses for multiple-ride MetroCards would fall to 15 percent from 20 percent, while the price of 7- and 30-day passes would rise as much as $5.

Weekly and monthly passes on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, which the authority operates, will rise as much as 4.3 percent. One-way, round-trip and 10-trip tickets will increase as much as 7.7 percent.

New Jersey Transit might seem beneficent because it is holding fares steady in 2008, but it raised fares last year by an average of about 10 percent. The DeCamp bus line in northern New Jersey and the Bee-Line buses in Westchester County also raised fares in 2007.

Airports

Perhaps the toughest place to gauge where prices are headed is at the region’s three largest airports — La Guardia, Kennedy and Newark.

Some analysts argue that prices will remain steady, or even decline, because competition among airlines remains fierce on the most popular routes. But others note that rising fuel prices have forced airlines to raise their prices at least eight times since summer.

Complicating matters, the United States Department of Transportation decided in December to reinstitute caps on the number of flights per hour during peak times at Kennedy and to introduce limits at Newark. Only 82 flights will be able to leave or land each hour at Kennedy, as opposed to an unlimited number now — often as many as 110 in peak hours.

At the same time, the airlines, while not losing any current slots, agreed to spread their flights out during the day to reduce aerial gridlock. This could lead airlines to lower some ticket prices to entice passengers to fly during less popular hours.

“This is a net positive for passengers,” said Kate Hanni, who runs the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.

Ms. Hanni said the new rules would create an additional 40 to 60 flights a day. “The airlines will absorb the underutilized time slots,” she said.

Passengers, she said, are already seeing a difference because JetBlue and Delta have voluntarily redistributed some flights to different times.

But because fewer flights will be leaving during peak hours, prices for those tickets could rise, particularly for business travelers who have little choice when to fly and who often buy tickets at the last minute.

If the record delays at the New York region’s airports do not subside, passengers can take comfort in a new state law that would penalize airlines that fail to provide adequate services to passengers trapped on the tarmac for more than three hours. Airlines operating in New York can be fined up to $1,000 a passenger if they do not supply water, fresh air, power and working restrooms during such delays.

The New York law, the first of its kind in the country, does not obligate the airlines to take passengers stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours off the planes, because the state does not have jurisdiction over the matter.


Tolls study planned 
DAY
Karin Crompton
Published on 7/18/2008 

On a day when the speaker of the House held a press conference to state his opposition to tolls on the highway, the state Transportation Strategy Board announced that the state has contracted with a consultant to study the issue.

Speaker Jim Amann, D-Milford, said in a statement issued Thursday that the Republicans' idea to cap the state's gross receipts tax on petroleum products is a “budget shell game.” Amann said commuters in surrounding states pay an average of $1,300 in tolls on top of gas taxes.

The state Office of Policy and Management has contracted with Cambridge Systematics Inc., a Massachusetts-based company, to study tolls and “congestion pricing,” a toll program that charges different amounts at different times of day.

The report is due by February 2009, according to OPM, in time for the next legislative session.
Rell fast tracks Penn Station plan
ROB VARNON rvarnon@ctpost.com
Article Last Updated: 06/15/2007 01:20:47 AM EDT

It's going to take a new tunnel under New York City's borough of Queens and new rail cars to get Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line commuters direct access to Penn Station.

That's according to a 2002 study, recent Metropolitan Transportation Authority press releases and a Metro-North spokeswoman. But the tunnel and the trains are already being built.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Wednesday ordered the Connecticut Department of Transportation to study what is standing in the way of bringing state train commuters to New York's Penn Station. She gave the department an Aug. 1 deadline to deliver its findings.

Rell spokesman Chris Cooper said Thursday the governor wants to get access to the station as quickly as possible and make sure Connecticut is doing what it can to speed that process. He said Rell has specifically been told the two major problems involve the station's capacity and equipment issues with trains.

A 2002 study for the MTA said providing Metro-North New Haven Line access to Penn Station has the potential of reducing more than 500,000 automobile trips a year into New York City.  Rell also asked the DOT to study the feasibility of purchasing bilevel rail cars to be run into Penn Station.

Connecticut and Metro-North's parent agency, the MTA, selected Kawasaki Rail Car to build the new fleet for the New Haven Line. But Canadian train maker Bombardier, which lost out to Kawasaki, has been pitching the idea of building double-decker cars specifically for travel to Penn Station.  Kawasaki is expected to begin delivering new cars in 2009.

New Haven Line trains would have to travel the Hell's Gate line to get into Penn Station; the line uses a slightly different propulsion system from the line into Grand Central Terminal.  Marjorie Anders, a Metro-North spokeswoman, said the Kawasaki-built cars will be able to run on the Hell's Gate and the New Haven lines.  She said Metro-North engineers are in Japan testing motors that will be used in the new cars. Kawasaki is about six months away from having a prototype ready for an engineering inspection, she said. The conceptual design is complete, according to Anders, and now the components of the railcars are being studied.

In 2009 — at about the same time the Kawasaki cars are to begin traveling New Haven tracks — Metro-North expects to begin providing service to Yankee Stadium and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.  But access to Penn Station won't be available until 2013, because that's when the MTA expects to finish a new tunnel into Grand Central from Queens to allow trains from the Long Island Rail Road access to the station.

The MTA said in a news release Monday that it lowered its new tunnel-boring machine into the 63rd Street tunnel. This is part of the $6.3 billion East Side Access project that will allow LIRR trains into Grand Central.  Having those trains go to Grand Central will free up space at Penn Station, Anders said.

But whether the New Haven Line will go to Penn is not clear.

The 2002 MTA study found either the Hudson or New Haven Line would provide benefits to the rail system if they were routed to Penn Station. The idea would be to have one of the lines run trains to both stations. For New Haven, some trains would be routed down the Hell's Gate line instead of down the New Haven Line.  The study remains open, according to Anders.

Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said his group supports the expansion of service and has discussed the idea of getting access to Penn Station for years.  The council is an advocacy group made up of appointees of the governor and the legislative leadership.  Rell appointed Fairfield University professor Chris DeSanctis to the council Wednesday.

Cameron said the council still has two unfilled positions he hopes lawmakers will address soon.
Mass transit pioneer: DOT official hopes to link transportation with development
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published April 9 2007

NEWINGTON - Albert Martin is the state's latest pioneer.

Not only is he the newest member of the state Department of Transportation, but after a national search started last year, Martin also was named Connecticut's first deputy commissioner of mass transportation and transit-oriented development.

As buzz builds around linking the state's expanding mass transportation system with commercial and residential development, Martin will be responsible for a job with no history in Connecticut.

"There are some negative sides to it, but for me it's far more positive," Martin, 64, said during a recent interview at his Newington office.

Though he has 37 years of government and administrative experience, including six years as director of Detroit's transportation department, Martin knows previous jobs will not always help him make decisions in Connecticut.

"Economic development associated with transportation . . . does not have a proven track record," he said. "You have no preconceived models you can follow.

"So there's not going to be a model from Detroit that's going to fit Hartford or Bridgeport. As a matter of fact, there's probably not going to be a model in Hartford that's necessarily going to fit New Haven or Bridgeport or Danbury or Waterbury."

After just a few weeks in the new job, Martin has become a visible face for the agency. He has made it a point to hear what the passengers have to say about the state's railroad and bus systems. He has attended two New York City meetings held to gather rail commuters' input and appeared in Stamford last week to listen in on a public hearing on how to fund new rail cars for Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line.

"I have been very much impressed with what I've heard," Martin said. "The level of knowledge of our customers . . . I'm going to continue to spend time at those meetings and hear what they have to say."

It's also important for him to work with municipalities and the business community to get them involved with the state's transit-oriented development efforts, he said.  The idea of "smart growth" has become a daily topic at the Capitol as lawmakers debate how to bring more development to the state without creating sprawl.  Transit-oriented development is not new, Martin said. As the country was developing, major cities were built along waterways, where goods could be transported.

"So while it may be new jargon, it's just going back to the basics," he said.

Compared with his time in Detroit, the automobile capital of the world, Martin said Connecticut has more potential for transit-oriented development because of the New Haven Line and the Shore Line East commuter rail line.

"This state has far more acceptance of, and dependence on, rail," he said. "Rail inspires far more economic development. If you were a businessperson who wanted to relocate your business to an area, you want to look at the availability of the work force to get to your business. . . . Rail gives you permanence."

As the state continues to develop, it must create a balance between moving new businesses around rail centers while encouraging employees to move closer to their work places, Martin said, explaining part of the philosophy of transit-oriented development.

"Where you can relocate to better utilize existing infrastructure and, if that is seen by the business community as a positive, then we'll work to make that happen," he said.

Martin may represent a change of philosophy from the DOT's long-held reputation as a "highways first" agency. This, transit advocates said, gives him a unique opportunity to make a statement for Connecticut.

"There's no question that it's a big step, but it's a first step," said Jon Orcuff, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. To help make transit-oriented development work, Martin may have to help "repair (the DOT's) relationship with the towns and cities. You can't do what you want to do if the municipalities don't trust you," Orcuff said.

Martin is "an agent of change," but he can't do it alone, said Joseph McGee, vice president of public policy for the Business Council of Fairfield County.

"There is a recognition that we can't just continue to pour concrete and build highways," McGee said.

DOT Commissioner Ralph Carpenter said his new deputy is right for the job.

"He has an even temper and he asks great questions," Carpenter said. "He is going to be a great asset to the department."

Martin said he hopes he and Carpenter, who was hired last summer, can help change the public's perception of the DOT.

"We're coming at this new," he said. "So for us, it's the Department of Transportation and that's all orientations. Transportation is all the roads, as well as mass transit, rail and bus and the many different modes of those two. So it doesn't faze me at all."

Contract awarded in July 2008 for study completion by immediately next Session.
State seeks funds to study effects of congestion pricing
By PATRICK R. LINSEY, Hour Staff Writer
March 31, 2007

NORWALK — Woody Bliss is the first to say it — congestion pricing is a difficult idea to get your head around.  The premise? A variable-rate tolling system that takes some cars off the road during busiest driving hours can increase traffic flow and actually allow more cars to use the highway.

"It's counter-intuitive and most people don't think outside the box," said Bliss, who is first selectman of Weston and chairman of the region's Metropolitan Planning Organization. "It actually increases the flow of vehicles through a given area in a peak period, which is a rush-hour period."

Last week, the MPO endorsed a proposed state study to examine whether and how congestion pricing should be used in Connecticut. The state is seeking federal money to fund the $4.5 million study.

"We don't have an opinion either way advocating for or against (congestion pricing)," said Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Transportation. "We just think it needs to be studied. The decision to implement tolls, congestion pricing, value pricing, whatever you want to call it, would be made by lawmakers."

Connecticut was not included in the federal government's latest round of grant money, which exhausted the Federal Highway Administration's 2006 budget for encouraging congestion pricing. But federal officials said more money is on the way for 2007.

"There are other opportunities for Connecticut to apply under the (federal) program," said Nancy Singer, a FHWA spokeswoman. "The program is funding at approximately $11 million to $12 million per year through fiscal (year) 2009. In addition, the president's proposal budget for fiscal (year) 2008 calls for an additional $100 million for the program."

Congestion pricing, also known as value pricing, has been implemented in other parts of the country and the world with some success, including California, Sweden and London. Modern systems use electronic transponders or snap a picture of vehicles' license plates to bill drivers, rather than stopping traffic for a toll.  By charging higher prices at peak commuting hours, traffic is lessened and traffic flow is improved. Improved flow means more cars can move a given distance over a certain amount of time.

Congestion pricing equates to "charging for the privilege of using a highway when it's crowded and there's a high demand," Bliss said. "We have the concept on the rails. You pay peak and off-peak. We have it on airlines. You want to travel the day before Thanksgiving, you pay a heck of a lot more than if you want to fly Thanksgiving Day."

In case federal money cannot be found for the study, lawmakers have included funding in a bill in the state legislature. State Rep. Toni Boucher, R-143, a member of the Transportation Committee, said she is "leaning against" the imposition of tolls but would like to see congestion pricing studied.

"I think we should know what it would entail, what it would cost, what are the benefits and how long it would take the recoup what sort of investment would be made," Boucher said. "It's a very substantial cost to put those new systems in."

Boucher said she is also concerned about privacy issues and whether congestion pricing could become another tax for Connecticut residents.  From Maine to Maryland, Connecticut is the only state on the Eastern seaboard without tolls on its highways.

Said Boucher: "I often see cars from other states going on our roads, so it raises the question should people get off scot-free going through Connecticut."
Feds won't fund study of electronic toll system
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published March 28 2007

State taxpayers may have to pick up the tab on a study of an electronic toll system that charges drivers varying rates depending on the time of day they're on the road.

The Federal Highway Administration yesterday rejected Connecticut's request for $4.5 million to fund the study of a toll system used elsewhere in the country to reduce congestion and increase state revenue. The state could reapply by the end of next month.

The study was recommended by the state Transportation Strategy Board and backed by the state Department of Transporation and the General Assembly's Transportation Committee.  Now, it appears traffic advocates will turn to the state to pay to see if such a system would be effective in Connecticut.

"We would be more optimistic if the state would fund and we can work directly, sooner, with a few less hoops," said Floyd Lapp, executive director of the South Western Regional Planning Agency, an organization that supports a study of congestion pricing tolls. "We could then be the masters of our own fate."

Lapp and others said the state should turn its focus to a bill recently passed out of the legislature's Transportation Committee for review by the House and Senate to fund the study.

"I do think we should be prepared to use state money . . . and to not continually put this off," said state Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee.

DeFronzo said he was confident the study money would be approved because "even folks who have had great skepticism have at least conceded that there should be some kind of objective analysis."

As the session wraps up in two months, the debate could center on how much money the state allocates for the study, added said.  Federal highway officials are encouraging states to implement congestion-pricing tolls, which collect fares electronically with transponder tags like EZ-Pass or by taking photographs of license plates and then billing the motorist.  The agency yesterday awarded 12 congestion-pricing projects - $8 million in grants in cities such as San Diego, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Seattle.

During a recent presentation in lower Fairfield County, federal highway officials said they were more interested in funding states ready to implement congestion pricing rather than study it.  A highway administration spokeswoman said yesterday that a new application from the state for the study would be considered.

"We will evaluate them all on their own merits," said Nancy Singer, a highway administration spokeswoman.

DOT officials have not been formally notified by the highway administration about the decision, department spokesman Judd Everhart said.

"If we are not selected, we will reapply for funding from 2007 funds," he said.


NYC Rolls Out Red Tape And Reels In The Wrong Driver
Hartford Courant
George Gombossy: Consumer Watchdog | WATCH DOG
July 20, 2007
Dr. Ahmed M. Khan, a New Britain neurosurgeon, has seen many things in his life, but the letter he received from New York City's finance department threw him for a loop.
The three-page letter notified him that he drove through a red light on West Street at 1:52 p.m. on May 16 and directed him to pay a $50 fine.  The front page of the letter had a photo of a Connecticut license plate with Dr. Khan's license number: 2436.

There were a couple of problems with this. Dr. Khan, who happens to be an old friend of mine, was not in New York City on May 16, nor was his car; in fact his car has never been to New York City in the six years he has owned it.

There were also two photos enclosed of the vehicle going through the red light: a large 45-passenger bus with a huge logo of Double A Charters. Dr. Khan's vehicle is sort of a bus, but it's a lot smaller - a Honda Odyssey.

Dr. Khan was perplexed when I talked to him Sunday. He figured the letter was either a fraud to get him to send $50 or the bus was sporting a fake license plate.

Of course, trying to talk to a human being at the New York City Department of Finance Red Light Camera Monitoring Program is as difficult as talking to someone at a large company.

So after trying that for 10 minutes I took a more direct route and called one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's press secretaries, the president of the bus company and the spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles.

I wasn't stunned when the Big Apple's press man, Owen Stone, proved less than helpful. After giving him four days to figure out what went wrong, I called him back Thursday. He said he had no clue, but did say that Dr. Khan was going to have to take time out of his life to contest the ticket.

"If he can prove it wasn't his vehicle [the citation] will be dismissed," Stone said.

I asked him if he thought it was fair to put someone through all this when it was the city's fault. Stone said it was no big deal for someone to gather all the documents and mail them to the city and await the outcome.

Great public relations job, Stone.

The president of Double A Charters, Tom Bascetta, was a stand-up guy. Yes, he said, his Rocky Hill company does have a bus with the license plate 2436 and it was probably in New York City on May 16.

"The picture is pretty incriminating," he joked when I described the photos. He asked me what he could do to make things right. I suggested he talk with his attorney.

Bascetta said he was unaware that New York City had a photo system capable of catching drivers running red lights. I am sure he will be passing that information along to his drivers who make frequent trips to the city.

William Seymour, a spokesman for Connecticut's Department of Motor Vehicles, spent a lot of time this week trying to figure out what happened. There is no question, he said, that in Connecticut it is possible for a bus and a car to have the same license plate number.

He also discovered that there have been about 10 other cases in the past year in which the wrong person was ticketed as the result of the New York camera system, perhaps because of similar situations.

By the end of the day Thursday, Seymour was sounding frustrated. He said New York officials, including Stone, had given him conflicting stories about how the tickets are processed, how city officials obtain Connecticut vehicle records and whether those officials simply rely on license plate numbers when they mail out citations, or whether the type of vehicle assigned the plate is verified.

Seymour promised that he would get to the bottom of the problem, that his department would make sure the citation against Dr. Khan is dismissed and that pressure would be applied by DMV Commissioner Robert Ward to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Latest (from across the pond...) on remote ticketing:

Is congestion pricing realy the culprit? 

Call for car number plate revamp 
Thousands of vehicle number plates were stolen last year

The number plate system needs to be completely overhauled to beat a rise in "car cloning", police have said.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says a record number of vehicles are being cloned to escape motoring fines and commit crimes.

More than 40,000 sets of number plates were stolen in 2006, a rise of almost 25%, according to police estimates.

Police blame rules on registering plate buyers and suppliers, making fake plates more difficult to get hold of.

No confidence

Acpo's Coventry-based Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service says it now has no confidence in the ability of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) licensing system to prevent cloning.

The service's Supt John Wake told BBC News: "The registration plate is the first form of identification of the vehicle to the general public.

"I don't have confidence that beyond that you can identify that that vehicle is the legitimate vehicle for that plate."

Acpo wants a central issuing body for the registration numbers, and all cars to have tamper-proof plates fitted.

The DVLA is considering forcing all the UK's 1.3 million motorcycles to be fitted with plates featuring electronic tags, which are currently being trialled.

The AA's Paul Watters said the amount of cloned number plates was "growing fast".

"It seems to be on a roll and we need to start taking some action to look at the innocent motorist who may fall victim to some of the issues which follow up the theft of a number plate," he said.

Drivers' tales of plate problems 

"There are different levels of cloning. There is the simple cloning, just stealing a plate to drive into say the Congestion Charge zone or evade a speed camera.

"It ranges up to a higher level which is the car criminal who wants to sell on a stolen car."

Tony Bullock's car was cloned even though his plates were not physically stolen, and he was threatened with prosecution after "his" car was repeatedly caught speeding in Leicester.

He said: "It was horrendous. You are guilty until you can prove you're not. It's the first time that I've thought that English law is on its head."

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Glen Smyth said the problem has grown because of the amount of camera-based enforcement of traffic offences, which relies on computer records on who owns which car.
Municipal leaders push for study of highway tolls
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published March 27 2007

The leaders of eight towns in lower Fairfield County yesterday endorsed the state's plan to seek federal money to study a toll system that would charge based on peak traffic times.  The South Western Region's Metropolitan Planning Organization - made up of elected officials from Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich, Westport, Darien, New Canaan, Weston and Wilton - hopes its approval will improve the state's chances of getting a $4.5 million federal grant.

"We have been driving this thing," said Weston First Selectman Woody Bliss, chairman of the MPO. "This is a very big step . . . but I think it's what we need to do as a state."

The state Department of Transportation recently asked all of Connecticut's regional planning organizations to endorse its application, which must be submitted to the Federal Highway Administration by the end of next month.  Lower Fairfield County's MPO was the first to respond.

"I think this group of elected leaders is willing to look at the facts and support the study, and then based on what the study concludes, carry the burden of explaining it to the people of this area," said Greenwich First Selectman Jim Lash, vice chairman of the MPO. "We're leading a little bit here because we probably have the worst traffic problems. We're stuck in a corner."

For more than a year, the DOT has been seeking money to study congestion pricing - a toll system that charges motorists different rates based on peak and off-peak hours.  Congestion pricing is used in parts of California, New Jersey, Minnesota and other U.S. cities, as well as London, Singapore and Stockholm, Sweden.  Federal highway officials are urging states to install congestion pricing as a way to mitigate traffic while generating revenue.

All congestion pricing systems use electronic tolls and don't require drivers to slow down at collection points. Fares are collected using transponder tags such as EZ-Pass or cameras that photograph license plates and then motorists are billed.  Connecticut's DOT applied for funds last year, but the Federal Highway Administration has not made a decision. As a precaution, the DOT is applying again, though a federal highway official last week said the administration is more interested in funding cities ready to install congestion pricing rather than study it.

In case Connecticut doesn't get the federal money, the legislature's Transportation Committee also approved funds for a study. The money is in a bill that the House and Senate must pass.  DOT officials were pleased with the MPO's endorsement yesterday, saying it will strengthen their application.

"We want to try and show the Federal Highway Administration that this is a statewide issue and we're not just going about this study on our own," said Carmine Trotta, assistant director of intermodal planning for DOT. "Hopefully we'll get more regions on board."

Trotta confirmed that the southwestern MPO was the first of the 15 planning organizations in Connecticut to endorse the plan. He expects to hear from more MPOs before the end of next month.  Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, chairman of Greater Danbury's Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials, said his group plans to address the study at its April meeting.

A year ago, the group said it would support the study but only if the state analyzed how congestion pricing would affect local roads, Marconi said.  Other advocates of a study said the MPO's endorsement is important.

"It has to be a statewide study for it to get done," said Karen Burnaska, who represents coastal Fairfield County for the state Transportation Strategy Board. "By getting the support of the MPOs, it shows that this will be a statewide study."


Toll Road Offers New Jersey a Fiscal Test Drive      
NYTIMES
By KEN BELSON
Published: April 13, 2008

HAMMOND, Ind. — The 157-mile-long toll road that slices through northern Indiana and connects Ohio to Illinois is as unremarkable as they come. On the western end, commuters speed past idled steel mills to get to and from Chicago, while in the east a stream of tractor-trailers plows past an equally undistinguished rural landscape.

But when a private Australian-Spanish consortium took control of the Indiana East-West Toll Road in 2006 after leasing the adjoining Chicago Skyway the previous year, the move touched off a fierce debate in Indianapolis that is reverberating in Trenton, Harrisburg and other statehouses across the country, where the struggle to finance soaring transportation costs goes on.

“I go to these governors’ meetings and 49 of them are wringing their hands,” Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said in an interview. “It’s not very complicated. Most of them can see it and are astonished at how great a deal Indiana got.”

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has been pushing to privatize New Jersey’s toll roads, much as Governor Daniels did in Indiana when he leased the road for 75 years and received a $3.8 billion lump sum, which he earmarked for transportation projects. But events and public opinion have conspired against Mr. Corzine.

Not long after the Indiana deal, he began raising the possibility of selling or leasing the state’s toll roads, but opposition had already started building, not only among voters, who were surprisingly sentimental about dealing away the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, but among state legislators as well.

Not long afterward, Mr. Corzine was involved in an automobile crash that almost cost him his life and took much of the steam out of many initiatives he had been pursuing.

By the time Mr. Corzine unveiled his plan in January, which also included cutting spending and limiting the amount of new bonds, opponents in New Jersey eagerly pointed to Chicago and Indiana to show what could go wrong with privatizing public assets. Wary of private operators, they contended that Indiana sold too low, and that tolls there would eventually rise too high. They also questioned whether Mr. Corzine would use the windfall wisely.

Mr. Corzine tried to allay those fears by proposing that the turnpike and the parkway be leased to a public corporation under state oversight. But his opponents focused less on who would operate the road and more on the toll increases — of as much as 800 percent by 2022 — that were critical to his plan. The plan has gathered little support from state lawmakers despite Mr. Corzine’s original goal of winning passage by the end of March.

Others critics were alarmed that some of the $38 billion in bonds Mr. Corzine hoped to issue would be used for projects unrelated to transportation.

“Early on, there was excitement about the big checks that came in,” Jonathan R. Peters, a finance professor at the City University of New York and an expert on toll roads, said of the arrangements in Indiana and Chicago. “But now academics and departments of transportation are starting to see that you can give away too much.”

In the aftermath of the agreements in Chicago and Indiana, lawmakers in California, Texas and other states have struggled to muster support for their own lease deals. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell’s plan to lease the state’s turnpike has been delayed by a counterproposal to collect tolls on Interstate 80. As these other states try to devise a plan acceptable to their residents, drivers who use the Chicago Skyway and Indiana East-West Toll Road seem to be adjusting to the new operators from Macquarie-Cintra, the Australian-Spanish consortium.

But Mr. Peters and other specialists who study toll road deals cautioned that the lease in Indiana was structured so that tolls would remain relatively stable for the first decade, then could rise quickly for the remainder of the lease — after many of the politicians who signed the original lease have left office. That may explain why drivers on the Skyway and Toll Road, while still suspicious of privatization, are largely pleased with conditions on the roads.

They say they like the additional tollbooths and the introduction of electronic tolls. And while truckers and those using cash saw tolls rise this month in Indiana, drivers of passenger cars with E-ZPass or the local alternatives, known as iPass and iZoom, are still paying tolls that have not been raised in more than two decades.

“The positive thing is they put in iZoom and the roads are well maintained,” said Roy Platz, 60, of Naperville, Ill., who for years has used the Skyway and Toll Road to get to his job at a steel company in East Chicago, Ind.

“I don’t care who they sell it to,” Mr. Platz said between bites of a double cheeseburger at a McDonald’s near the Skyway. “If the Spanish want to give us $4 billion, fine. But government being government, the money could be frittered away.”

On the contrary, Governor Daniels, a former budget director under President Bush, said Indiana had been prudent with its money — which has all been dedicated to infrastructure improvements.

In addition, Indiana earned $287 million in interest from the $3.8 billion the state received last year. Mr. Daniels has also distributed $150 million in highway funds to his state’s 92 counties since the lease began.

On top of that, he said that, to the best of his knowledge, Indiana is the only state with a fully financed 10-year transportation plan.

“This isn’t dogma,” he said, “this is solving a problem.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Daniels, who is running for a second term this year, has taken a lot of heat from opponents in Indiana, who have insisted that he back away from proposals to privatize other highways. Critics like Roger Skurski, a retired professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, contend that if “reasonable changes” had been made in the way tolls were collected, the state could have made more money by not leasing the toll road.

“It didn’t appear they were making the case that an outside company could do a better job,” Mr. Skurski said. “They were assuming it.”

“The selling point for the governor,” he added, “was that he could get the money up front.”

But Mr. Daniels said the changes Mr. Skurski was referring to would never have been made because local politicians always balked at raising tolls.

The new operators have been quick to make changes to boost efficiency. They bought coin and bill counting machines so that toll collectors no longer had to spend 45 minutes a day stuffing hundreds of dollars in nickels, dimes and quarters into rolls. Freed from rigid government contracts, the consortium has negotiated lower prices for new snowplows and roadway de-icing liquid. In addition, there is a new incentive program in place that rewards employees with an extra month’s pay for good customer relations, attendance and initiative. And televisions have been removed from the tollbooths to force collectors to focus on their jobs.

“People were upset about the TVs, but patrons need your full attention,” said Linda Wilson, the supervisor of the WestPoint toll plaza here.

For those who regularly use the Skyway and Toll Road, the improvements have helped soften their stance on privatization — as long as tolls do not rise too fast.

“I thought it was crazy to sell the road to someone outside the U.S.,” said Chad Deanecelli, 28, a cook at a rest stop in Portage, Ind., who drives 40 miles to Chicago twice a week to visit his grandmother. “It’s pretty expensive, about $12 a round trip. But if the money is used for transportation, it’s good.”
Feds endorse highway toll system
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Mark Ginocchio, Staff Writer
Published March 21 2007

WESTPORT - Federal Highway Administration officials yesterday urged state lawmakers to install highway tolls that charge motorists different rates based on peak and off-peak hours.

The tolling method, called congestion or value pricing, helps reduce traffic during rush hour while providing the state with cash for transportation improvements, said Patrick DeCorla-Souza, program manager for the administration's congestion pricing initiative.  Other cities worldwide use the method successfully, and other transportation systems, such as airlines and railroads, already charge varying rates based on peak hours, DeCorla-Souza said at a meeting at Westport Police Department headquarters organized by the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

"People understand that at certain times during the year, certain goods and services are more valuable," DeCorla-Souza said at the event, attended by about 30 municipal leaders and legislators from Fairfield County. "The idea now is to help them understand it in the transportation arena."

Congestion pricing is different from tolls because it doesn't charge a flat fare to motorists regardless of the time, DeCorla-Souza said.  With advances in technology, cash lanes are not needed with congestion pricing, he said. Tolls can be collected at high speeds using transponder tags such as EZ-Pass, or by taking photos of license plates.

The Federal Highway Administration would not support a method to reduce traffic if it led to toll plazas that slow cars down, DeCorla-Souza said.

"That would defeat the whole purpose," he said.

Fares would be highest during rush hour, DeCorla-Souza said. There may be no tolls late at night and early in the evening, he said.  The state Department of Transportation is seeking federal money to study congestion pricing. But DeCorla-Souza said the federal government is more interested in awarding money for congestion pricing rather than a study of it.

The DOT first wants to look into how tolls would affect highway traffic and how they could affect local roads and mass transit ridership before it launches a demonstration, said Carmine Trotta, assistant director of intermodal planning for the agency.

If the state fails to get federal money for a study, the legislature's Transportation Committee approved $4.5 million for that purpose. That bill must be approved by the House and Senate.

Congestion pricing is used in San Diego County and Orange County, Calif., DeCorla-Souza said. On Interstate 15 in San Diego, the high-occupancy vehicle lane has been converted to a toll lane.  The congestion in that lane is monitored every six minutes, and the fare often is raised throughout the day to manage traffic, he said.

On state Route 91 in Orange County, tolls for a designated express lane range from $1.15 to $9.25, depending on the time of day.

Congestion pricing has been most successful abroad, DeCorla-Souza said.  Highways in London, Stockholm and Singapore use it in all lanes.  When Stockholm installed congestion pricing as a trial last year, people were against it, DeCorla-Souza said. But after the trial ended in July, a referendum to keep the tolls passed 2-1 because traffic improved, he said.

"Public opinion can change," DeCorla-Souza said. "This is going to require a little pain before it works."

Some lawmakers are skeptical. They questioned whether congestion pricing would hurt low-income people the most, because their schedules might not be flexible enough to choose when to go to work.  The state could assist low-income commuters, DeCorla-Souza said. It must work with employers to persuade them to offer flexible work schedules that include more telecommuting, and it should work with bus and rail operators and van pool organizers, DeCorla-Souza said.

Westport Police Chief Alfred Fiore said there is little data on how congestion pricing affects local roads.  If the result is anything like the Post Road after an accident on I-95, it could create headaches for municipalities, he said.

The federal government could help Connecticut improve traffic before implementing congestion pricing, said state Rep. Thomas Drew, D-Fairfield.

"I don't see any federal focus on any mass transit initiatives in terms of funding, or any focus in getting trucks off the highway by using rail freight," Drew said.

Plan to ease I-95 congestion looks to charge rush-hour drivers  
NEWS12
http://www.news12.com/CT/topstories/article?id=191467
March 20, 2007
 
DARIEN - A representative from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) was in Westport Tuesday explaining to local officials how "congestion pricing" could ease traffic on I-95.

The U.S. DOT is offering a grant for any metropolitan area interested in trying the experimental method of managing congestion. The plan calls for state officials to charge people to use I-95 during the most congested times in certain areas.

A DOT representative says between 5 to 10 percent of the cars need to be removed from the road during congested times to keep the highway free-flowing. Revenue would then be used to invest in transit and other methods to reduce the number of cars.

Concerns include the impact the plan would have on local roads, like Route 1, and the impact to people with lower incomes.
State, Local Officials Briefed on Highway Toll Plan
Westportnow
By Jennifer Connic

State and federal officials are considering a plan that would charge highway drivers a toll during peak traffic hours, but some local officials are not sold on the proposal.

The Southwest Regional Planning Agency sponsored a session on congestion pricing at Westport Police Headquarters today, and the session was attended by a large number of state legislators, mayors, first selectmen and other elected officials from throughout lower Fairfield County.

Patrick DeCorla-Souza, U.S. Department of Transportation program manager for congestion pricing, said the proposal is not a flat toll like what exists on many roads in the United States, but rather a charge to shift when people would use the highways.

Federal officials are also offering $130 million in grants to states who are willing to implement a congestion pricing plan as a demonstration because federal officials believe people will only accept the model once they have used it.

"It’s a simple concept that people understand,” he said. “They’ll have to look for alternative modes of of transportation and alternative times of day to travel.”

With congestion pricing, a toll price is only charged during peak travel times when there is significant traffic, he said.

The method has been used in other areas of the country, including on several New York bridge crossings, DeCorla-Souza said, where there is a discount on the toll if a motorist crosses at a less congested time.

Additionally, some areas of the country, including San Diego, have a system where there is a charge to use a special lane, he said, but he recommends there be a charge on all lanes of traffic.  Other places in the world have implemented the system, he said, including Stockholm, Sweden, which was initially done as a trial.

Once the trial ended, he said, the system was removed from the road, and voters were given the choice to bring it back or not. The referendum was in favor of the congestion pricing, he said.  He supports a similar model in the United States where the system is used as a trial and then put to a referendum vote, he said.

State Department of Transportation officials present at the session said state officials are planning a study on what system would work best in Connecticut, but did not believe they would receive federal funding now for it because there are no plans yet to implement such a system.

Local officials also expressed concerns with the system and how it would affect local traffic, including Westport Police Chief Al Fiore.  Fiore asked if there were any indications that traffic would not be pushed on to local roads and impact the police and local residents.

He asked if there was any studies done in places that have implemented congestion pricing on the impact on the local roads.

“I fear that the guy you are taking of the highway is going to be on my local roads,” he said. “I want to see evidence that there is no impact so I don’t have to worry about residents calling me complaining they can’t get out of their driveways on Green’s Farms Road.”

DeCorla-Souza said he understands most people do not have the flexibility to shift when they travel during the high-traffic times.  But if 5-10 percent of the motorists chose to travel at a different time, he said, it would help with the congestion on the highways.

Additionally, he said, there needs to be other modes of mass transportation and information easily accessible about it available to people.

Posted 03/20 at 10:11 AM
"SWRPA/MPO Congestion Pricing 101" Tuesday, March 20, 2007
7:30 a.m. at the Westport Police Department Classroom.  Public invited.

More Metro-North Riders Using Trains Within The State
DAY
Published on 12/8/2006 
 
Stamford (AP)— Metro-North's statistics for its New Haven line show many more riders have been using the trains to travel to points within the state in recent months.
Figures show a significant growth in daily trips at points between New Haven and Greenwich.

The figures also show more riders are getting off the train in Stamford, compared with those boarding in Stamford and riding the train into Grand Central Terminal.

More than three million intrastate trips have been made from January to October this year — an increase of 6.5 percent from the year before.

Metro-North says overall ridership on the New Haven Line, which includes trips into Grand Central Terminal and reverse commuting out of New York City into Connecticut, has increased by 3 percent during the same period.

At Stamford, the New Haven Line's busiest station after Grand Central, 4,300 people this year got off the train every day — 2,500 coming from other points in Connecticut and 1,800 from New York — during the morning peak.

The rise in intrastate ridership is due to rising gas prices, increases in the frequency of service and the increase of development in cities such as Stamford, Eugene Colonese, rail administrator for the state Department of Transportation's rail bureau said Wednesday.

Colonese said that in recent years, the state has held down the monthly fares for intrastate tickets, which has made train travel more competitive with driving.

Union Station Owners Consider Seeking Tax Break;  Amtrak portion might have exemption under state law
DAY
By Elaine Stoll
Published on 12/20/2006
 
New London — The owners of Union Station may seek tax-exempt status for the portion of the privately held Water Street property used by Amtrak.
Todd O'Donnell, who owns Union Station with Barbara Timken, said Tuesday state and federal statutes exempt Amtrak and its renters and landlords from property taxes. Amtrak leases an undisclosed amount of space at Union Station.

O'Donnell pointed to a section of the Connecticut General Statutes, stating that the gross earnings tax that corporations operating railroads for profit in the state are required to pay annually “shall be in lieu of all other taxes in this state for the year.” The same section states that property owned or operated by such a corporation “when not used exclusively for railroad purposes, shall be assessed and taxed where it is located.”

Amtrak, which was created as a for-profit corporation, pays gross earnings tax to the state, O'Donnell said Tuesday. O'Donnell said that only the portion of the station property not used by Amtrak — and therefore “not used exclusively for railroad purposes” — is taxable.

He also cited federal law in support of the claim that the portion of Union Station leased by Amtrak is tax-exempt. A Dec. 23, 2005, opinion written by a principal analyst at the Connecticut General Assembly's Office of Legislative Research and