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In a Jam
Local governments explore ways to move people from here to there
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Business New Haven
9/18/2000
By: Linda G. Mele
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The South Central Regional Council of Governments (COG) recently revealed its draft of proposed transportation improvements for the region.
Held at the Shoreline Trolley Museum in East Haven, the meeting was called to explore a variety of mass-transit options COG and the state have been looking at for a number of years in order to alleviate the vehicle traffic on the highways in COG's 15-town region.
“We at COG take the transit issue seriously,” says chairman William Dickinson, mayor of Wallingford.
Dickinson says many different agencies “play an integral role in moving people from one place to another,” and a regional approach makes the most sense.
Dickinson says the $800 million Pearl Harbor Memorial (“Q”) Bridge project may take as long as 12 years to complete, so alternate means of transportation need to be identified now before construction begins.
According to Milford Mayor Frederick Lisman, “COG's top priority is to support mass transit that's user-friendly, in a good location and that gets people where they want to go quickly.”
To address that sentiment, COG unveiled a proposal to build a railroad “super station” in either West Haven or Orange that would feature parking for at least 1,000 cars.
Calling rush hour traffic jams a “nightmare,” Orange First Selectman Mitchell Goldlatt says it's time “to get the parking lot off I-95 and put it where it belongs - next to a new station.”
Goldblatt says that the longest stretch of Connecticut coastline between New Haven and Greenwich without a train station is from New Haven to Milford.
“Locating a station in Orange [off Marsh Hill Road near Exit 41 off I-95] would put it 4.8 miles from Union Station in New Haven and four miles from the Milford station. Locating it in West Haven, however (west of Saw Mill Road near Exit 42 off I-95) would put it only 2.5 miles from Union Station and 6.3 miles from the Milford Station,” Goldblatt says.
In addition, Golblatt says a station in Orange would require the acquisition of only six properties, while 26 properties would have to be acquired if it's sited in West Haven.
West Haven Mayor H. Richard Borer Jr. says COG has been looking at a train station in West Haven or Orange for “at least seven years.”
It would be a “huge economic development tool” for whichever community is chosen, Borer says.
According to David Lee, spokesman for Connecticut Transit, nine million trips on public transportation in the state were recorded in 1999.
“Four out of five users surveyed reported that they were 'well satisfied' with the service,” says Lee, “but our goal is five out of five.”
State Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesman Michael Sanders says the state and federal government spend $250 million a year on public transportation in Connecticut, and that an average of 33,000 commuters use trains and busses in the state every day.
Rideworks executive director Jean Stimolo and Greater New Haven Transit District spokesperson Donna Carter say their organizations offer several options to ommuters and businesses that want to help their employees commute more efficiently.
In addition to car pooling, van pooling, riding the train or a bus, Stimolo says she works with companies to devise telecommuting programs “that completely take vehicles off the roads, and we even have an electric vehicle we've been operating for about five years.”
According to Stimolo, Rideworks programs can be customized to both employers' and employees' needs.
“Mass transit is a viable alternative and we need to embrace it as a region,” Dickinson adds.
“Everyone's been reading the same book, but now we're finally all on the same page” when it comes to the need for mass transit, Sanders says.
For further information about transportation initiatives and programs, check out the following:
• www.I95newhaven.com
• www.dot.state.ct.us/
• www.i95coalition.org/
• www.rideworks.com/
• www.Ctrides.com
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