HOW CT COMMUTERS SUBSIDIZE NYC'S MTA

Heading to New York City?  Take the train, because driving is going to become even more expensive:  the NY plan for “congestion pricing” is back!

As everyone predicted last June when NY Governor Kathy Hochul suspended plans for a $15 toll for driving into midtown Manhattan, she has now reversed her decision.  She is now proposing a $9 charge for passenger cars ($2.25 off-peak, and $14.40 for small trucks).

It seems ironic that New York City doesn’t control its own mass transit system, but that responsibility is left to the state.  While Governor Hochul claimed just months ago that her decision to suspend the toll was a win for commuters (who drive), now she’s added a new twist.

By lowering the toll to just $9 she now claims she will be saving drivers $1500 a year.  That’s an amazing spin, no?

While the MTA is notorious for wasting money on multi-billion projects, there’s no doubt that the funding is badly needed to keep mass transit running.  But that agency’s $15 billion plans were dependent on the higher tolls, not the new reduced tolls to go into effect in January 2025.

New York Governor Hochul says this has nothing to do with President-elect Trump’s plan to kill the congestion pricing scheme, but her timing says otherwise.  Once initiated, these tolls may be difficult to overturn. Difficult but not impossible.

But these are not the only ways that Connecticut residents help subsidize the city’s mass transit.

Most Connecticut residents working in New York City contribute to the Payroll Mobility Tax, which is a significant source of funding for the MTA.  In 2020, this tax was expected to generate $1.1 billion annually for the MTA.

This makes perfect sense, as most Connecticut commuters depend on Metro-North and the city’s subways to get to their destinations. And those who chose to drive to Manhattan should clearly pay for privilege.

While New Jersey Governor Murphy is suing the MTA over its toll plan, Governor Lamont has been only mildly supportive of congestion pricing, but adds "it's a good thing for all if more people took the train".  According to the MTA, 3100 Connecticut drivers travel to the city’s central business district each workday.

Connecticut is dependent on Metro-North for running “our” trains and maintaining the infrastructure: we own the tracks between Greenwich and New Haven but it’s Metro-North that fixes them.  If / when we order new railcars (which also run in New York state), Connecticut pays two-thirds of the cost and New York picks up the rest. 

Meantime, we are enjoying a flood of federal money for our rails as part of President Biden’s infrastructure law… $291 million to be spent on our tracks and power system, bridge replacements, double-tracking of the Hartford Line and relocating Hartford’s Union Station.

Clearly, the rush is on to get as much money as possible invested in mass transit before the Trump team returns to power.  The President-elect seems determined to cut federal spending and prioritize road repairs over transit, pedestrians and cyclists calling the Hochul plan for congestion pricing “a regressive tax”.

NEW LOCOMOTIVES FOR METRO-NORTH

Finally, there’s some good news for Metro-North riders, especially those who take the Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford lines:  new locomotives are coming… eventually.

Meet the Siemens Charger model SC-42DM, the first of its kind in the US.

Being built in Sacramento CA, these new engines are the latest innovation in the long history of this German manufacturer.  It was Siemens that built the first electric tram in the late 1800’s.  They even partnered to build one of the first commercial maglev trains, in Shanghai.

The Charger is a great machine and there are hundreds already in use in the US and abroad, running on railroads ranging from Amtrak and Brightline to commuter lines in Maryland, California and many other states.  They’ve already accumulated 10 million miles of operation.

But our Charger locomotives will be different. 

The DM in their name means they are “dual mode”, operating under diesel power and third rail.  Unlike the older GE-built P32 Genesis locomotives, these new Chargers can “go electric” all the way from Pelham (in Westchester County) to Grand Central.

But they can’t run “under the wire” in Connecticut like our Kawasaki M8 cars (which are also dual-powered, equipped with pantographs and third rail shoes).  That means that when running in Connecticut, the Chargers be using diesel power.

The good news is that, even running diesel, these are some of the cleanest, least polluting fossil-fuel engines available. They are Tier 4 certified, meaning they reduce pollutants by 85%. They also accelerate faster.

Connecticut’s branch lines, especially the meandering Danbury line, will never match the speeds of the mainline.  But with so many stations, on a steep upward grade, if every departure can be quicker, there will be time savings.

The new Chargers are equipped with electronic monitoring and diagnostics to alert the crew to any problems. They’re even quieter, thanks to active noise cancellation technology.  

But all of this innovation comes with a hefty price tag: $15 million per locomotive.

Metro-North has 27 of the new Chargers on order and just received their first two.   If testing on the new Chargers goes well, the railroad has an option to buy dozens more.  CDOT is also buying six of the same model.

Siemens has also built dual-mode Chargers for Amtrak. But in that case they operate “under the wire” on the Northeast Corridor.  Realistically, the third-rail version makes much more sense for Metro-North which has over 100 miles of electrified track (on its Hudson and Harlem lines) where third-rail is the only power source.

The Metro-North locos were ordered in 2020, paid for in part by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration which is pumping $1.5 billion into new rolling stock for mass transit nationwide through 2026.

These first two new Chargers for Metro-North now have to undergo testing, first at the FRA test track in Pueblo CO, then running on Metro-North tracks. 

This first duo of the new model should be in service, they say, by 2025.

 

 

LIFE AS A VAN NOMAD

Lorrie Sarafin is a van nomad in the American Southwest, one of the estimated three million Americans who live on the road.

For three years she has been without a house, but not a home, not just surviving but thriving in the desert and mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, living in her van “LokiMotion”, named after her cat.  Now in her mid-60s, Lorrie is living off her Social Security checks.

Raised in central Connecticut she describes herself as a “small town girl, but not rich”.  Not loving the big city, she moved to Arizona in 1993 and reinvented herself as a self-taught musician and artist, recording two CD’s of native American flute music. She even took extension classes through Julliard.

In 2014 she discovered minimalist and van-lifestyle guru Bob Wells and she started thinking about different housing options.

Unlike the van nomads whose lives were so well documented in the 2021 Oscar winning movie “Nomadland”, Lorrie didn’t lose her job and house, but walked away from both, choosing instead to spend her retirement living on the road.

“I asked myself ‘why am I doing a job just to have money to pay rent?’”.  (Doubtless there are housing-squeezed folks around here who may be asking the same thing.)  “Now I don’t have to pay rent or utilities, just car insurance and van payments.” 

After working all through Covid (without vaccination or getting sick), in 2021 she fitted out her new van’s interior herself complete with a bed, cabinets, shelves, a small refrigerator, Sirius XM radio and lights.  It’s all powered by a 500 watt battery she charges with solar panels for about six hours each day.

Solar cells charge up her battery

She can’t cook in her van but has mastered campfire cuisine.  Her biggest worry is bears so she keeps her bear spray close by and is considering getting a gun.

In the winter she heads to the warm side of the state where overnight lows are in the mid 30’s and daytime highs in the mid 70’s.  In the brutal summer heat she abandons the desert for the mountains.  “Above 8000 feet it stays in the mid 80’s,” says Lorrie. “But when it’s cold and raining, it’s not a lot of fun (being cooped up in the van).”

She can camp for up to 14 days on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or US Forest Service land, then has to move on.

Sanitation depends on buckets, her laundry being done at a laundromat.  She takes sponge baths in her van and says that daily showers are over-rated.  As for her health, “I haven’t seen a doctor in 20 years but take a lot of supplements and must have a great immune system.”  She swears by Wild Oregano Oil as a preventative.

While she prefers to camp alone or with her friend, she actually likes being out of cellphone range.  She visits a small town PO Box for her snail mail and uses her cellphone for internet and email.

Camping in the mountains

She describes her fellow van nomads as “really nice people” who share her love of being alone. 

“If you’re a curl-up-on-the-couch and watch Netflix kind of person, this life is not for you,” she warns.   “But for me, I just have so much freedom and am in love with nature.”

TRANSPORTATION ON THE BALLOT... BUT NOT IN CT

The polls are open for early voting in Connecticut.  And while the national and state races occupy most of voters’ attentions, there is one thing noticeably absent on their ballots:  transportation.

“Transportation in Connecticut is like the weather,” said one cynic.  “We all complain about it but don’t think there’s much we can do to change it.”

Mind you, Connecticut voters have had ballot questions focused on transportation issues in the past.  In 2018 they approved a Constitutional amendment to put a “lock box” on the Special Transportation Fund, hopefully guaranteeing that money raised through the gas tax is spent only on transportation, not treated as a petty cash box for legislators looking to balance the budget as it has been in the past.

That initiative was approved by an 88% margin.

But a September poll of Connecticut voters commissioned by CTMirror showed that the economy was top-most on their list of worries along with immigration, housing and the deficit.

Of course, fixing our transportation woes is really just a matter of money and how to raise it.  And with utility costs soaring (and the Governor apparently unmoved by 68,000 petition signatures gathered to protest that issue), the idea of doing something like raising taxes doesn’t seem to be on the table in the Nutmeg state.

Not so, elsewhere.  November’s ballot will see a number of such initiatives across the nation, totaling $50 billion in possible spending.

Take Nashville TN for example.  That burgeoning city has some of the worst commuting delays in the US.  While in 2018 a proposal to spend $5 billion on a transit system was defeated by a two to one margin, residents are reconsidering the idea this year. The new “Choose How You Move” plan would spend $3 billion on roads, traffic signals, pedestrian infrastructure and, yes, rails… using federal money and a half-cent sales tax.

Phoenix Light Rail

Similarly fast-growing and gridlocked Phoenix AZ has had a half-cent sales tax for transportation for 40 years, allowing construction of its ambitious light rail system covering 30 miles and 40 stations connecting Phoenix to Tempe and Mesa.  But that tax is set to expire next year if the upcoming November ballot question (to extend the tax another 20 years, raising $15 billion) doesn’t pass.  Recent polling says it will.

In Seattle that city voted to tax its residents for transportation spending in 2006, 2015 and they’re back again.  Seattle’s Proposition 1 would raise $1.55 billion over eight years through a property tax levy of about $44 a month for the typical home.  Polling looks like it, too, will be approved.

While some cities turn to sales or property taxes to fund transportation, not so in Connecticut where we depend on “user fees” (gasoline taxes).  But as more drivers convert to electric cars, a gas tax alone won’t cut it.  We will have to find other funding sources… if there is any appetite for anything that raises the cost of living in our beautiful, but road-clogged state.

Meantime, what the heck is going on with this October drought?!

 

 

CONNECTICUT'S TRANSPORTATION "THINK TANK"

UConn is best known for its basketball team, maybe even its academics.  But did you know there’s a think-tank on campus doing interesting research on transportation?

Now celebrating its 50^th anniversary, the Connecticut Transportation Institute’s mission is to innovate on hardware and software to make our travels faster, safer and cheaper.

CTI’s Executive Director Eric Jackson says “we have access to a huge network of experts from all disciplines on campus”, though most of their $7.5 million annual budget comes from CDOT and federal agencies involved with highways.

But this “think tank” does more than just “think”.  They also train, offering dozens of courses for public works staffers doing everything from snow plowing to highway maintenance.

CTI’s pavement lab is designing better road surfacing that will grip your car’s wheels without wearing out the pavement.  Highways that don’t wear out as fast means a saving on your taxes.

More recently they’ve demonstrated a truck equipped with reflectometers measuring how well the lines on the highways are visible at night.  By prioritizing repainting the line marking that don’t adequately reflect headlights, there’s more tax savings. That high-tech truck will inspect every state road in Connecticut by mid-2025.

In anticipation of self-driving vehicles, CTI is opening a testing ground on UConn’s Depot campus to test the electronics that will let driverless vehicles talk to each other.  They’ve already partnered with the Feds and CDOT to soon test driverless buses on the CTfastrak busway from New Britain to Hartford.

Some of the Institute’s most important work is number crunching.  They log 110,000 police reports each year on vehicle crashes by location and time, looking for patterns.  Too many incidents at one intersection may suggest a roadway redesign, hopefully saving lives.  CTI can even work with local police crash investigators to gain access to newer cars’ black boxes, which record speed and braking before a crash, seeing if it’s the road or the driver that may be at fault.

“We’re also testing ‘wrong way rumble strips’ at highway on-ramps to prevent cars from entering the roads in the wrong direction,” says Jackson.  But he admits that if drivers are impaired, the bumpy road may not even be noticed. “Those drivers would probably drive head-on into a police cruiser with its lights flashing.”

To prevent drunk driving, CTI is working with CDOT in testing passive alcohol sensors built into the vehicle.  Not a blow test like a breathalyzer but some new tech that would measure alcohol in your sweat when your thumb hits the start button.

And to keep us all safe from over-tired truckers, the Institute is developing an app to show the long-haul drivers where they can legally and safely pull over for the night when they’ve reached their maximum time on the road.  At night you’ve probably seen dozens of trucks parked on interstate shoulders, so this might keep them (and the rest of us) safe while drivers catch badly needed rest.

All of this work engages CTI staff as well as Civil Engineering students, some of whom may chose careers at CDOT after graduation.

 

 

THE UNGLAMOROUS LIFE OF A LONG HAUL TRUCKER

Why do most motorists hate truck drivers?  Is it because their big rigs are so intimidating?  Or do we think they’re all red-neck cowboys living the life on the range, and we’re secretly jealous?

 

I respect truckers and think, for the most part, that they are much better drivers than the rest of us.  They have stiffer licensing requirements, better safety monitoring and have much more experience behind the wheel.  And unlike most of us driving solo in our cars, they are driving truly “high occupancy (cargo) vehicles”… 22 tons when fully loaded.

 

For an inside look at the unglamorous life of a trucker, I can highly recommend the 2018 national best-seller “Long Haul” by Greenwich native Finn Murphy who’d been driving since he was 18 for the Joyce Moving Company, based in Oxford CT.

 

Murphy is what truckers call a “bed-bugger” because he specialized in high-end corporate relocations.  He was at the top of the trucker food chain, both in income and prestige, far ahead of car haulers (nicknamed “parking lot attendants”), animal haulers (“chicken chokers”) and even hazmat haulers (“suicide jockeys”).

 

While Murphy says a lot of long haul truckers do the job because they can’t find any other work, his career choice was an educated decision. He left Colby College before graduation, realizing he could easily make $100,000 packing, moving and unpacking executives’ prized possessions without his BA.

 

Since the start of COVID, millions of Americans have moved their homes and from this author’s perspective they all have too much stuff.  They covet their capitalist consumption of furniture and junk (what movers call chowder).  And it ain’t cheap to move it, averaging about $20,000 for a long distance relocation.   But as Murphy sees it, he’s more in the “lifestyle transition” business than simply hauling and he must be sensitive to clients’ emotional state.

 

Murphy’s African American boss nicknamed him “The Great White Mover” as, at age 62, he was one of the last few white drivers.  Most of the industry is now handled by people of color, especially the local crews that do the packing and unpacking. 

 

When self-driving trucks eventually hit the road, thousands of minority drivers are going to be out of luck.  Robots already do most of the loading and unloading of trucked merchandise bound for big-box stores.

 

As an independent operator, Murphy incurred all of his expenses.  His tractor (the detachable engine part of the truck) cost $125,000.  That’s not counting the $3500 he paid to register it or $10,000 to insure it.  A new tire (his rig had 18) costs $400 at a truck stop and maybe double that if he’s stranded on some interstate.

The average rig isn’t just a tractor hauling an empty trailer.  Even before loading, that trailer has hundreds of pads (each of which must be neatly folded), plywood planks, dollies, tools, ramps and hundreds of rubber straps for tying things down.  Loading his truck is like solving a giant Tetris 3D puzzle.

 

Murphy’s driving hours were regulated and carefully logged, then checked at every state truck inspection station.  But he thought nothing of driving 700 miles per day, usually parking at a truck stop and sleeping in his on-board bunkbed equipped with a high-end stereo and 600-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

 

On the road he listened to audio books and NPR, which is probably how he learned to write so well (the book is not ghost written).  Finn Murphy wasn’t the brawniest of movers, but he’s easily among the smartest and most articulate. 

 

After decades on the road Murphy retired and moved to Colorado, transitioning to a new career in the cannabis business… going $300,000 into debt but writing another book, “Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West”.

 

Even if you have no aspirations of life on the open road, Murphy’s well-written book may give you a new appreciation of truckers and may even change your stereotypes.

 

TRAIN BATHROOMS

Let’s give Metro-North our kudos for some innovative tech to improve passenger comfort:  a new QR code in each train bathroom to allow customers to report any problems.

Bathroom dirty?  Too stinky?  No soap or paper towels?  Just open your smartphone, access that bathroom’s unique QR code and send in your report.  You can even add pictures.  Knowing exactly which bathroom (by train car number) needs attention, a cleaning crew can be swiftly dispatched to make things right.

In the first week of the program Metro-North says they got 34 reports on bathrooms, 16 of them positive.  The complaints were “addressed quickly” says the railroad.

Mind you, the newish M8 cars on the mainline seem to have many fewer bathroom problems than on the older cars where you’d need a hazmat suit to “go”. 

You might even remember the story from 20+ years ago of the commuter who said he lost his cellphone down the John and, when he tried to retrieve it, got his arm stuck up to the elbow.  Trains were delayed and it took the jaws of life to set him free.  But no phone was ever found… not that you’d want to put that up to your face after it took that dunk.

 

In other good news… service on Shore Line East (the rail line that runs from New Haven to New London) is slowly returning, as is ridership.  With the new fall timetables now in effect, four new trains have been added including through-service to Stamford without a change of trains.

Susan Feaster of the Shore Line East Riders’ Advocacy Group credits the new service to her group’s lobbying of local politicians who fought hard for more funding and scored an additional $5 million in the last session.  Still, even with the new trains, this railroad is only at 50% of the service offered pre-COVID.

“Ours is not a ‘seasonal train’ as CDOT Commissioner Eucalitto recently claimed,” she told me.  “Shore Line communities deserve full train service and we’re ready to fight for it in the next legislative session.”

Speaking of organized transit lobbying…

We’re in the home stretch of the November election campaigning so now is the time to keep transportation funding top of mind for candidates.  As you attend your local League of Women Voters debates, ask questions of those who’d represent you.  Get them on the record on how to get mass transit the money it deserves.

Don’t know what to ask?  Try one of these questions:

Whatever happened to Governor Lamont’s promise to speed up the trains, offering 60 min run-times from New Haven to Grand Central?

Why does Metro-North refuse to restore the popular Quiet Cars?

Why is there still no Wi-Fi on Metro-North despite $23 million in special funding to CDOT to make it happen?

And when you ask the candidates, listen for specific answers, not platitudes.  And then vote accordingly.