Paying for Transportation: Let's Not Be Fuelish

My father taught me that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. I’m trying to teach my daughter that there’s no such thing as a free ride.

With a newly minted driver’s license, she’s found new freedom behind the wheel… until I ask her to fill the gas tank. Now, as we drive past local gas stations, she’s taken new interest in comparison pricing.

A large part of the cost of gas is taxes that subsidize our transportation system. That’s why gas is so much cheaper in New Jersey (no taxes)… but also why they have expensive tolls on their highways. Remember… “no free ride”.

But as I have written about for five years now, gasoline prices in this country are still too low because they don’t ask us to pay for the true costs associated with driving.

How much would gasoline cost if the pump price included the billions we spend each day fighting to keep access to Middle East oil? Or, what if drivers were asked to repay the 40% of all police costs associated with patrolling the roads? Or how about asking motorists to pay at the pump for the land lost to taxation by turning it into highways?

But it gets worse.

In Connecticut we are facing a major funding crisis in transportation because of our over-reliance on the gas tax.

Not even the relatively expensive fares on Metro-North reflect the true cost of running that service, hence the operating subsidy by the state from the Special Transportation Fund (STF). Created in 1984, the STF was to be a “lock box” of money to invest in our state’s transportation infrastructure and help cover the cost of transit operations.

But 40% of the STF comes from gasoline taxes. So in 1997 when Governor John Rowland got the legislature to cut the gas tax from 39 cents to 25 cents a gallon, he doomed the fare-paying bus and rail passengers in our state.

Every penny of gas tax raises $15 million in annual revenue. So Rowland’s tax-cutting stunt cost the STF $210 million a year, or almost $3 billion to date. That’s money that wasn’t available to be used to repair our roads, buy new rail cars or buses or keep fares affordable.

And going forward, with automobiles becoming more fuel efficient (i.e. using less gas) and eventually becoming all-electric (using no gas), the STF will have even less funding to maintain the highways and keep mass transit affordable.

And that’s not even considering the legislature’s recent diversion of $10 million from the STF into the general fund to balance the budget. So much for “lock boxes.”

What’s the alternative?

Well, tolls would be a good start. But the state’s Transportation Strategy Board spent a million dollars to study tolling, only to reject eleven options cited by the consultants. And there are precious few lawmakers in Hartford or Washington willing to suggest tolling our “free-ways”, especially in an election year.

Or how about using a VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) tax? Motorists would pay for the number of miles they drive: a highway use fee. Of course, the use of GPS to track their travel patterns and charge by time-of-day and congestion probably leaves the libertarians shaking… as if Big Brother doesn’t know your every move already by tracking your cell phone.

Or how about what they’ve done in Portland Oregon, a payroll tax of .07% with proceeds going directly to the transit system, by-passing sticky-fingered legislators.

Someone, somehow is going to pay for our roads and rails. If not in a gas tax, then in some other revenue raising-mechanism. Because, as we must all understand, there is no free ride.

A WPA Project For Transportation

How can our nation pull itself out of this economic tailspin, create new jobs and actually give something to generations? Why, by repairing and reinvigorating our country’s transportation system. What we need is a new, 1930’s style WPA Project for transportation!

The recent election saw a number of states and cities endorse spending for mass transit, mostly for overdue improvements transportation, but with the side benefit of thousands of jobs.

In California voters approved an almost $10 billion bond package to build high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The full plan will cost $42 billion and employ a half-million workers. Construction of the 220 mph train system could begin in 2011.

In Los Angeles voters also approved a half-cent sales tax hike to fund new roads and rails. Over the next 30 years that should mean $40 billion for transportation alternatives to road-weary commuters.

Contrast those visionary voters’ decisions with the muck and mire of us living here in “the land of steady habits”.

We’re not building a transportation bridge to the future but paying for the collapse of one 20 years ago! Today, 40% of the budget of the CDOT still pays debt service on bonds issued after the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 fell down due to engineering neglect.

Right here in Darien we’re watching CDOT spend over $5 million to replace the Hollow Tree Ridge Road bridge over I-95. So far, the seven month-long project seems to be employing just a handful of workers and more time has been wasted since the bridge was closed to traffic than has been spent in actual construction.

Face it. We need to fix what we have before dreaming of a maglev running down the center of our freeways.

The Merritt Parkway opened in 1938. Interstate I-95 came along twenty years later. Both are in bad shape and jammed with far more traffic than designers had ever imagined.

We all know that new M8 rail cars are on their way for Metro-North. Sadly, they are being built by a Japanese company (Kawasaki) and not in Connecticut (but Nebraska). Imagine if those millions were spent in-state for local labor.
And PS… your grandchildren will still be paying for the M8 cars when they’re of commuting age.

But enough grousing. It’s a new day in America, even if it is cloudy and cold. The Obama – Biden team understands the value of transportation spending and hopefully will turn on the federal spigot.

According to APTA, the American Public Transportation Assoc., an industry group, $1 billion in federal investment creates 35,000 jobs. And APTA says there are 559 “ready to go” transportation projects worth $8 billion.

So let’s go! The way to jump-start our ailing economy is not to send out “stimulus” checks to consumers who we hope will shop for LCD TV’s (made in China) for sale at Circuit City (now bankrupt).

Let’s think big. A super-Acela truly offering high speed rail service. How about finally fixing our air traffic control system so a light rain doesn’t close LaGuardia. And what about those feeder barge test-projects designed to get container cargos off of our highways.

Let’s build roads and rails, airports and shipping terminals. Let’s make jobs and leave something our grandchildren can envy.

“The Critelli Commission”

The Governor’s “blue ribbon” commission studying the reform of the Department of Transportation, headed by (Darien resident and) Pitney Bowes Chairman Michael Critelli, has finally issued its draft report.

While much of the report addresses the dysfunctional organization of this immense agency, I am personally pleased that the Commission also picked up on some suggestions for improving rail service. Among them…

• Expanding parking at all rail stations, but leaving the towns to price and administer the issuance of permits.
• Revisit the Metro-North contract for the operation of our trains with an eye toward greater parity between the railroad and CDOT.
• Focus on the maintenance and repair of our railroad bridges, 206 of the 325 of which are rated as being in less than satisfactory condition.
• Better coordinate bus and rail schedules to offer riders of both an inter-modal transit experience.
• Evaluate an independent Transportation Authority (like the MTA or NJ Transit) which could serve the interests of mass transit apart from the highway interests which dominate our current CDOT. (Connecticut is the only state in the union that runs mass transit out of its DOT).
• Speed up construction of commuter rail on the New Haven to Springfield corridor.
• Expand service on the Danbury, Waterbury and Shore Line East branch lines.
• Finally do something to offer a rail freight alternative in Connecticut.

But, beyond rail, the Critelli Commission also suggested some ideas to make CDOT more “user friendly”, following the lead of other states.

• Have a website where consumers can actually find information. For example, when construction projects are scheduled and, if they are running late, why and when they’ll be completed.
• Offer a 511 dial-in service for all traffic and transit updates. Using such a service a traveler could ask “If I leave Stamford right now, how long would it take under current conditions to get to New Haven?”, and be told travel time by road and rail.
• Finally, the Critelli Commission deserves commendation for embracing an often forgotten transportation alternative… pedestrians and bikers. Think of how many additional auto parking spaces could be found at stations if bike paths and bike lockers were available at stations for local commuters… or even sidewalks to walk safely to mass transit.

The Critelli Commission report is now added to that ever-growing pile of studies and reports on what ails our state’s transportation systems. Nay-sayers will claim this study, like scores before it, will add up to nothing. But I’m an eternal optimist and feel otherwise.

If the current national search for a new Commissioner of the DOT turns up someone with organizational skills and vision, the Critelli Commission’s recommendations could become a roadmap to our future.

Designing the new M8 Rail Cars

Some people say I’m a curmudgeon with never a nice thing to say about Metro-North or the CDOT… always complaining… too negative. Well, this column will change your mind. I have seen the designs for our new M8 cars on Metro-North and I’m ecstatic!

Much of the credit goes to renowned designer Cesar Vergara, who has commuted for years from Connecticut and recently spent many months riding the Harlem and Hudson line cars to learn from their successes and mistakes.

From the outside, our new cars will look much like those M7 cars running in Westchester and on the LIRR. But on the inside, it’s all first class… though it’s still two and three seating. The color scheme is deep burgundy and rich cream with frosted silver and aluminum.

The windows are bigger. The overhead baggage rack has a soft, scalloped look. The lights run the length of the car and are offset by oval accents in the vestibules. The floors are a non-skid rubber made in Germany.

There are single leaf doors instead of doubles. An overhead LED displays the next stop, complimented by an automated PA system. The crew can talk to each other on their own intercom and there’s a separate intercom for emergency use by passengers to contact a conductor.

Yes, the seats are still two on one side and three on the other, but they look much more comfortable. Covered with naugahyde, each seat has its own headrest with airline style winglets to stop snoozers’ heads from landing on a neighbor’s shoulder. Between the headrests are grab bars to assist getting in and out. And wonder of wonders, the seats have an extra inch of “pitch”, or distance from the back of the seat to the next one. They will be soft, but not bucket-style as we now have.

The new M8’s will have vacuum toilets capable of holding five days of effluent, though pump-outs are promised more often… i.e., they shouldn’t stink. And thanks to ADA requirements, they’ll be roomy too!

Each train set will be equipped with GPS so it will always know where it is, as will the control room. Space is being built for the addition of WiFi gear, but none is planned for now pending a study with Amtrak.

Despite earlier plans to have cars share power conversion duties (with one car being powered by third rail and its mate fed by overhead catenary), all cars will now have both third rail and pantographs, but be permanently coupled in “married pairs”. New cars cannot run in train consists with the older M2’s, M4’s and M6’s.

AC traction motors will offer speedy acceleration and convert braking energy into generation of electricity to be fed back into the overhead wires. Because the new cars are heavier and there will be so many of them (300+), Metro-North and CDOT are worried about whether the existing power infrastructure can handle the load. (When the M7’s were first added to the Harlem division major upgrades to the power grid were needed).

The first eight cars will arrive in “early summer” 2009 for testing and acceptance by the end of that year. They’re being manufactured by Kawasaki in, of all places, Lincoln, Nebraska. Despite fears to the contrary, CDOT promises that the M8 maintenance facility will be finished by the time the first cars arrive.

Commuters can watch for a seat-drop in coming weeks with pictures and a chance for some final input on the design.

Reforming the Connecticut DOT

Once again, Governor Rell has taken a heavy, hands-on approach to running state government, big-footing her new commissioner by ordering a top-to-bottom reform of the trouble-child of state government, the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Good for her.

It wasn’t enough that she once publicly spanked the former Commissioner, Stephen Korta, for his agency’s messy handling of the used-Virginia commuter-rail car debacle. Or that she was embarrassed by the recent scandal over the $60 million I-84 drainage system. Or that we were all surprised that CDOT had secretly decided it could cut back on bridge inspections, ignoring the lessons of the Mianus River Bridge disaster 20+ years ago.

(For a fascinating, yet depressing, history of the CDOT, click here for a recent commentary in the Hartford Courant.)

Now the Governor has created a panel to completely reorganize CDOT. And they have ‘til December 1st to issue their recommendations. Headed by Pitney Bowes Chairman Michael Critelli, the panel is a strange mix of state bureaucrats, lawyers and business people, with no apparent outside experts in organization or transportation.

But, as they undertake their Sisyphean task, I hope they will give serious consideration to carving out a new agency: The Connecticut Transit Authority or CTA.

Until 1969, Connecticut used to have separate agencies for highways, transportation, aeronautics and steamships. Then they were all subsumed into the Department of Transportation, or as I think of it, the “Department of Asphalt and Concrete”. Highways always have and always will reign supreme at CDOT.

According to the widely respected Tri-State Transportation Campaign, in 2005 CDOT spent 76% of state transportation improvement money and 84% of Federal “flexible funds” on highways… at the same time Metro-North was at a near meltdown. While other states, like California, long ago halted new highway construction in favor of mass transit, CDOT lumbers on building new roads.

The six year, $1.5 billion expansion of the Q Bridge in New Haven will, by CDOT’s own admission, relieve traffic congestion for only three years before the I-95, I-91 intersection is again clogged tight. Those years of construction mess and billions of dollars will yield what?

But take that same money and invest it in expanded Shore Line East rail service and we’d relieve congestion on I-95 for decades.

While the Governor and legislature deserve credit for finally committing $3.6 billion to transportation in the last three sessions, we simply cannot trust the CDOT to allocate and administer those funds for mass transit without breaking out that priority under a separate agency.

Connecticut is the only state in the union that runs its buses and commuter trains out of its Department of Transportation… and it’s clearly not because we have some extraordinary vision or expertise. Transit, airports and water-borne transportation would all be better served by again being carved out of the CDOT and given their own budget, staff and goals.

As it stands, CDOT’s highway focus has pretty-much sublet our rail future to our vendor, Metro-North and its parent, the MTA in New York. We pay them to run our trains, set our schedules and even design our new M8 rail-cars… all without a vote on either board. We write the check but they call the tune.

Under-staffed and over-burdened, the few dedicated CDOT staffers working on bus and rail issues don’t stand a chance in an agency so clearly dominated by highway interests.

In its earliest deliberations five years ago, the state-wide Transportation Strategy Board considered creating a CT Transit Authority, but succumbed to the entrenched highway interests. Last session in the legislature a bill was introduced to reconsider the idea, but the Transportation Committee decided to wait a year.


Now’s the chance for real reform of the CDOT, and I hope the Critelli Commission seriously considers the potential for a CTA. Let’s get our trains and buses, our stations and ferries out from under the highway department!

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JIM CAMERON has been a Darien resident for 15 years. He is Chairman of the Metro-North Commuter Council, a member of the Coastal Corridor TIA and the Darien RTM, but the opinions expressed here are only his own. You can reach him at jim@camcomm.com or www.trainweb.org/ct