THE TRAFFIC CALMING ILLUSION

You've seen the bumper stickers: Slow down in town. They're a nice thought. Completely useless, but nice.  Apparently, the theory is that shame, printed on vinyl, will penetrate the skull of someone doing 45 mph in a 25 zone while texting.

I wouldn’t exactly call it road rage, but why is it that when we’re behind the wheel our goal is to get on down the road as fast as traffic will allow, the speed limit be damned?  But, once in our own neighborhood, we transform into traffic calming zealots.  It's remarkable how quickly self-interest masquerades as public safety.

Increasingly, local neighborhoods are serving as shortcuts for GPS apps like WAZE offering drivers routes around clogged arterial streets, spreading out the traffic into our gated suburbs of the mind.  But there is a way to enforce the speed limit without radar traps.  It’s what traffic engineers call “traffic calming”.

More than just “speed bumps”, engineers now have a slew of street re-designs in their repertoire that can force us to reduce our speed.  Among them…

SPEED TABLES: Think of these as extended speed bumps with a six foot long ramp up, a ten foot long flat table and a six foot long ramp down.  Slow down or lose your muffler.

Speed Table:  slow down, or else!

ROUNDABOUTS:  Small traffic circles with landscaping in the center make us slow down as we go around, eventually taking a right turn to continue our journey… assuming our fellow motorists know how to maneuver these rounded roadways without circling endlessly.

CHICANES:  A traffic chicane is a series of alternating curves or S-shaped shifts built into a roadway.  It forces drivers to steer back and forth instead of driving in a straight line. This design interrupts sight lines, narrows the travel path, and naturally forces motorists to slow down.

Chicanes

BULB-OUTS or NECK-DOWNS: These are extensions of the sidewalk into car parking areas at corner crossings. Again, you got to slow down… or else.

SIDEWALKS:  It’s amazing how many of our communities lack these pedestrian amenities, forcing hoofers to compete for space on the asphalt with cars. Sidewalks get pedestrians out of the traffic and encourage us to walk and leave the car at home.  And PS:  sidewalks are NOT for bikes.

CROSSWALKS:  What a concept!  A place where pedestrians have the right of way over cars, sometimes even mid-block and without the need for stop signs or red lights.  Good concept, if it’s observed by motorists.  Otherwise, pedestrians beware!

ROADBLOCKS and MAZES: These were inspired by anti-crime efforts in drug dealing neighborhoods (“crime calming”), making it hard for drive-through drug buyers to find their way in and out of a neighborhood.  Local residents know how to maneuver the maze, but casual short-cutters won’t try it again.

Of course, all of these traffic calming techniques assume that the major traffic arterials, where the cars belong, can be kept flowing with their own traffic tricks.

Otherwise, we're just playing whack-a-mole with traffic. We beat it back from the arterials into the neighborhoods, feel virtuous, then act shocked when the neighborhoods become cut-through nightmares. Turns out you can't engineer your way out of bad urban planning.  You can only shuffle the misery around.

 

THE HIGH-SPEED RAILROAD NEVER BUILT… 120 YEARS AGO

What happens when a great transportation idea gets ahead of itself?  Consider the story of the greatest American railroad that never got built.

We are all familiar with The Twentieth Century Limited and The Broadway Limited, the crack trains of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads that ran for decades between New York and Chicago.

Those daily trains defined deluxe, pampering passengers with plush Pullman cars, fine dining and even an on-train barber shop.  But they each took up to 20 hours to make the run because they took different, circuitous routes.  The NY Central followed the “water level route” north to Albany, then across upstate New York and down the coast of Lake Erie.  The Pennsylvania RR’s “Broadway Limited” (which would start in 1912) journeyed south to Philadelphia, then west to Pittsburgh and beyond.

But way back in 1905, inventor Alexander Miller had a better idea:  build a brand new, flat and straight interurban railroad that would run directly between the two cities, The Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad.

When building a high speed railroad, straight is better

Even over 120 years ago Miller knew the importance of straight-running tracks to achieve and hold high speeds, a lesson we in Connecticut wish they’d learned before building the New Haven RR along our winding coastline.

Miller’s train would be “faster than the limited” and make the run between NYC and Chicago in just 10 hours for $10 a ticket (worth about $380 today).  Powered by the new marvel of electricity, the train could operate at a third the cost of steam engines.  And by running in a straight line the 743 mile route would be 168 to 237 miles shorter than its competitors.  In principal, it was brilliant.  And the timing was perfect.

Mind you, this railroad’s interurban cars (think trolley cars on steroids) might not be as plush, but they would average 70+ mph thanks to the almost flat grade of one percent and no pesky grade crossings.  There would also be few stops as the route would bypass all major cities.  And this train would be fast… 100 mph on the straight-aways!

The electric rail cars that could do 100+ mph

Two million dollars worth of stock was issued with shareholders promised first priority for thousands of potential jobs.  Railroads were the dot-coms of the era, and people rushed to invest.  With no bonded debt, the company’s prospectus promised stock dividends of 14% on top of the shares’ appreciation. You just couldn’t lose!

Construction began from west to east, as the railroad would open in stages to help pay for itself and further building toward New York.  A mighty four track railroad, akin to Metro-North, was envisioned and it was hoped that the project would be completed in just ten years.  Spur lines would be constructed to serve the cities by-passed by the “air line”.

Then, reality set in with the depression of 1907 – 1908.  Construction got as far as Chesterton IN, about 50 miles east of Chicago, when the money started to run out.  The engineering of this mighty railroad was just too expensive.

Shareholders revolted when news came that the railroad’s officers were getting fat paychecks as the coffers were drained.  A hoped-for bailout by British banks never happened.  Those shareholders lost everything.  And the impending arrival of automobiles might have doomed the line anyway.  Even The Twentieth Century and Broadway Ltd eventually succumbed to the competition of true “air lines”.

But for a brief moment, a century ago, a dream almost became a reality in the greatest railroad that never was.

 

CT'S $1.6 BILLION RAIL PROMISE

The Governor and the CDOT tried to make some “big news” about our trains last week.  Here’s how most media summarized the story:  “Connecticut has broken ground on the $1.6 billion TIME-1 upgrade of the New Haven Line, targeting speeds of up to 90 mph, improving service by 2035.”

Maybe you saw the media coverage and said “Wow.  Great news”.  Or maybe you had a sense of déjà vu and asked yourself two questions:  “Haven’t I heard this promise before?” (yes) and “Should I believe this promise, delivered in an election year?” (no).

As a journalist I was disappointed (but not surprised) that almost no media asked those same questions, instead just regurgitating the press release.  So let me try to separate the facts from the hype.

TIME FOR CT PROJECT:           Your sense of déjà vu was correct as the Governor and CDOT made this same announcement five years ago.  And their promises then have yet to be delivered. 

In fact it was in 2019 that Governor Lamont promised us a 30 minute train ride from New Haven to Stamford. The fastest trains today are the early morning super-expresses which run non-stop in 45 minutes.  Better, but not what was promised.

WILL THIS REALLY COST $1.6 BILLION ?:    Yes, and it’s not yet fully funded.  There’s money so far only for Phase One, just $340 million, to rebuild the catenary, fix one bridge and upgrade tracks and signaling.  And this Phase One covers merely three miles of track.  

Stratford RR Station

Phases Two and Three, which bring the biggest improvements, are not yet funded.  Transportation money from the current White House is drying up so the prospect of the additional $1.3 billion that’s needed seems to me like wishful thinking.  In the tech world they call such claims “vapor-ware”.

So why announce a project that won’t be finished for nine years when funding is still uncertain?  Because it’s an election year.

Don’t get me wrong.  This work is necessary and decades overdue.  It will make the railroad safer and maybe even faster… assuming the money is found and the work gets done.  But I predict it will all cost more and take longer than they hope… or are willing to admit.

FINISHED BY 2035 ?:       This will really take nine years?  Yes, and probably longer.  Consider projects like the Walk Bridge in Norwalk, first announced by then-Governor Malloy in 2014, with construction finally beginning in 2023 with an expected completion now in 2029.  Initial cost estimates of $465 million have since doubled.  I’ve been calling it “the billion dollar bridge” since first writing about it 12 years ago. 

Rebuilding a working railroad is expensive and slow.  If Metro-North could shut down the railroad completely, work would go faster… but that is impossible.  So expect a lot of delays for the next decade.

SPEEDS OF 90 MPH ?:    This is the promise that most angers me because it’s just not true. It’s just like Amtrak’s claim that its new Acela NextGen runs 165 mph.  Yes… for about 10 miles in New Jersey and a few more in Rhode Island, but not the full trip from Boston to Washington.

And Connecticut’s supposed “90 mph” trains… they’ll achieve that for a three mile straight stretch between Stratford and Bridgeport, but almost nowhere else.  And by the way, the promised improved average speed of 70 mph on Metro-North will be the same speed limit before the Bridgeport and Spuyten Duyvil derailments prompted the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) to lower the speed limits.  And that was 13 years ago.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE:      This project is important and I hope it gets built even if it takes longer and costs more than what’s being promised now.  But as I’ve said for years in my CT Rail Commuter Council days, “Our train service will get worse before it gets better”. 

There will be delays, just as we’ve seen on other CDOT projects (like the Darien train station, now 15 months behind schedule) or the never ending work on I-95, I-91 and I-84.

But can’t the CDOT and their pol bosses at least be honest with us and not over-promise and consistently under-deliver? 

And to my fellow journalists… please stop being stenographers.  Our job isn't to parrot press releases.  It's to ask the question on every commuter’s mind: 'Will this actually happen?'  

 

IS IT TIME TO TAX EVs?

Why do electric vehicles (EVs) get a free ride on our highways? 

Why do traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) car owners pay about 43 cents per gallon in gas taxes while EV owners pay nothing… and yet their cars are thought to cause more wear and tear on our highways because they’re so heavy (due to their batteries)?  Is that fair?

Those were the questions posed last spring when the legislature considered a bill to make EV (and hybrid) owners pay their fair share.  But HB 5568 never got out of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee after a single public hearing brought unanimous, vocal opposition:  54 testified against, zero in favor…  not even close.

As of December 2025, there were more than 73,156 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles registered in Connecticut, a 20% increase over the previous year.  But while those numbers are climbing, EVs and hybrids still represent less than three percent of all vehicles registered in the state.  Still, it seems that you see (but often don’t hear) them all the time, whooshing around almost silently, their drivers wearing that smile of money-saving satisfaction. 

If you’re the hypothetical “average driver” in CT and you drive about 12,000 miles a year you’ll end up paying about $209 a year in gas tax.  Drive 15,000 miles and that number jumps to about $250 a year.  And that assumes your car gets about 24.5 mpg.

Those gasoline taxes flow into the Special Transportation Fund  paying for road repairs, the DMV, and mass transit that many drivers never ride but benefit from anyway (more people taking mass transit = fewer on the roads).

Opponents of a tax on EV’s and hybrids fear it would discourage their adoption, running counter to Connecticut’s state policy of reducing auto emissions.

Connecticut is one of only eight states that don’t  tax EVs.  In Pennsylvania the fee is $250 a year for EV owners and $62.50 for plug-in hybrids.  In Vermont it’s $89 and $44.50, respectively.

The Connecticut bill, if it hadn’t died in committee, would have raised registration fees for battery electric vehicles to $345 every three years and for plug-in hybrids to $233 every three years, with standard gas vehicles remaining at $120. 

Right now EV’s only pay $57 registration fees every three years, further incentivizing their adoption.

Lawmakers (and the CDOT) argue that the Special Transportation Fund is in trouble if EV adoption rates continue and gas tax revenues continue to fall.

Why did the bill die in Committee?  Why didn’t it have the name of any lawmaker(s) as its sponsor?  Because it’s an election year and nobody wanted their fingerprints on a bill that hurts affluent EV drivers… or the environment. “Bad optics”, as they say.

Never mind that CDOT recently replaced new, electric trains on Shore Line East with diesel locomotives belching exhaust as they run between New London and New Haven.  I guess that saying you’re ‘green' is easier when you ignore the obvious.

We used to think of the necessary reform of our Social Security system as the “third rail of politics.”   Maybe taxing electric vehicles is the same thing?  Or there’s always the idea of tolls.