BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — More trains, more stations and billions of dollars. The Connecticut Post reports that that’s the best way to take on congestion on Interstate 95, according to an advisory group for the Transportation Strategy Board.
At their Wednesday meeting in Bridgeport, the Coastal Corridor Transportation Investment Area board stated the best way to beat gridlock was to increase rail travel in the area, but there was some disagreement over the way the train system should operate in the future.
The group called for the state to immediately order new rail cars and improve station access and the maintenance system required to keep the train system running smoothly.
Cost estimates are expected to reach $2.9 billion over a 26-year period, according to the Southwestern Regional Planning Agency.
The estimate does not include operating costs or the additional station parking and new station construction proposed by the group.
The group proposed the building of at least two new stations, one in Orange or West Haven and one in Fairfield. It also said other stations need improvements to parking facilities and bus service connections.
The placement of stations started the debate over what kind of system the state should provide in the future — one that is more like a subway system with lots of stops and more trains, or one with large hub stations, fewer stops and trains.
During Wednesday’s meeting, CCTIA Co-chairman Franklin Bloomer pushed for the subway-like system, where people could walk or ride a bike to their local station. He pointed out that it would reduce traffic not only on Interstate 95 but also on local roads.
Sue Prosi, senior transportation planner for the Southwestern Regional Planning Agency, was against increasing the number of smaller stations.
“You can’t have a train stop at every podunk little station,” Prosi said.
Judy Gott, executive director of the South Central Regional Council of Governments, a CCTIA member, said Friday the group seems to have made a compromise on the issue with more stations west of New Haven and more hub stations east of New Haven. Gott fought for the group to endorse a hub station in West Haven or Orange to take pressure off the New Haven station. New Haven recently opened a second train station, on State Street.
“New Haven’s full,” Gott said Friday. “We need a second garage in New Haven.” The second New Haven station, she said, does not have its own parking garage.
Gott said Bloomer got the transportation groups thinking about people who prefer to ride their bikes to the station; New Haven is adding 15 bike racks after discussions with bicyclists.
Gott also sits on the Interstate 91 Transportation Investment Area and said that group just endorsed the creation of a commuter rail line from New Haven to Hartford as its top priority, indicating that rail was in the forefront of most planning groups’ thinking.
CCTIA and the other TIA’s have now made their suggestions; the Transportation Strategy Board will decide the fate of these proposals over the next three months. TSB Chairman R. Nelson Griebel said there is no guarantee any or all of TIA’s top priorities will end up in the 20-year plan for the state.