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.