Sorry, yarders. Cuomo was the first to drive over the Bridge.
I couldn't do it. My conscious wouldn't allow it. Some people are cool with discrimination, and some are not. I can't support states that are OK with treating some of our fellow Americans as second class citizens. Guess that's just the millennial in me talking. I think Connecticut should bring back tolls. Federal law does not allow tolling exclusively at borders, so let's have a $20 toll at borders, and then tolls of $0.01 at various spots inside of the state to satisfy federal law.
Not economically feasible. Land acquisition costs are too high. Boston's Big Dig cost $26 billion. Also, no matter how expanded the roads become, they will, after a short time, be just as crowded as people switch their routes to take advantage of the lower traffic volume. For instance, right now Rt.95 in CT is a nightmare. If lanes were doubled, the problem would be eliminated in the short term. With lower traffic, more people will move in to take advantage of the quick commute. Traffic will build and be just a crowded as before.
Don't understand the tolling idea. I suppose you are saying you want to get the folks driving through - but, of course, even regular toll roads capture that. My wife's argument when we were in NJ was that the tolls on the NJ Turnpike should be high, to capture all the through traffic. Your scheme, it seems to me, would still capture significant tolls from residents leaving the state for daily work, and while the low tolls within the state don't penalize local drivers, the truth is that local drivers (immediate local drivers) always have the option to take side roads.
Generally agree. Not only will people move to wherever their commute time is lowest, so will businesses and communities until traffic volume equalizes. The nature of CT is such that you can't build bypass routes either. We are too developed and the volume in the SW corner is too dense.
to true. The state of Connecticut's combined state and municipal bonded debt as a percentage of gross state product ranks Connecticut #27 among the fifty states. The quirk of Connecticut is that it is one of just two states without functioning county-level government. That has meant that a number of functions that would normally be performed by counties, or county-level school districts, are pushed up to the state level. So while the state looks more debt-heavy than other states, the municipalities are far less debt-heavy, and operate far smaller governments relative to population. That's the flip side of the fiscal coin.
1. For those fairfield county residents who think the all their tax money is being spent on highways in Hartford you should be aware that 80-90% of highway construction costs are paid with federal money. Furthermore, more state tax money is used to subsidize Metro-North in Fairfield County than is spent on all mass transit systems in the entire rest of the state.
I used to live in FC in the mid 70's and the traffic was horrible then, with the added problem of toll booths in Greenwich, Westport, Stratford, West Haven, etc. I used to travel from Norwich to Westport on Sunday evenings in the summer. There would be mile long lines at every toll. I would buy a pizza, have a couple of cold beers and a couple of J's ready, put a tape in my 8 track and just resign myself to a 3+ hr ride. A simpler time.
