Darien Times
By Julie Weisberg
Transportation is the key to remaining a leader in the global economy, according to a panel of experts who took part in a special conference organized by Congressman Christopher Shays earlier this week.
The panelists agreed America’s aging infrastructure is in desperate need of repair and must be expanded and enhanced if the nation is to accommodate its growing transportation needs.
Shays, a Republican who represents the Fourth District, which includes Darien, said federal, state and local officials must recognize the current transportation crisis and then come together as a nation to meet its challenge.
He said the expected reauthorization of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) next year was not only an opportunity to talk frankly about the country’s infrastructure problems but also an opportunity to encourage Congress to make new investments in maintenance and to increase capacity.
“We are all Americans, and we need to show some courage and engage in honest dialogue,” Shays said in his opening remarks at the conference Monday morning at Westport Town Hall. “We have to have a vision and then get the American people behind it.”
He added that on a more local level — as part of the “golden triangle” transportation corridor between Boston and New York City — Connecticut’s roads, bridges, rails, and ports are often bursting at the seams with the nonstop commercial and commuter traffic that travels upon them.
This congestion not only is aggravating to residents and other travelers, Shays and panel members said, but also a significant barrier to the region’s economic growth.
“This is all about jobs: jobs for your children and your grandchildren,” panel member Francis McArdle, a senior advisor to the General Contractors Association of New York, said of importance of infrastructure improvements. “If you don’t get the people to the jobs, the jobs will go elsewhere.”
To help alleviate much of the congestion on the state’s roads, many of the panelists discussed the need to expand the region’s mass transit system.
“We’ve got to dramatically expand capacity on the rails,” panel member Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Planning Association, said. The RPA is the nation’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group.
James Boice, a panel member and deputy commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, said while additional capacity on the region’s current mass transit lines is important, the state is also working to develop a commuter rail line between New Haven and Springfield, Mass.
Mr. Boice added that the nation’s transportation system “was designed on a system of $1-a-gallon gasoline.”
“It’s been a hell of a party,” he said of inexpensive gas prices. “But the party is over.”
Panel member Floyd Lapp, executive director of the South West Regional Planning Agency, pointed out that the region has already experienced a dramatic spike in commuter rail ridership due to the recent spike in gas prices.
And with gas prices expected to soar to $5 a gallon by the end of the summer, he said, many commuters will increasingly leave their cars at home and seek out alternative ways to work.
“We are at the edge of a new frontier, opportunity and challenge of transportation infrastructure,” he said.
Mr. Lapp added that his agency currently is studying the bus line that runs along the Post Road from Greenwich to Norwalk, in hopes of learning ways to improve and enhance the transit line.
“And I’m convinced if we can make that (route) work, we can continue right up the line,” he said.
But new solutions and enhancements to the country’s infrastructure will require a significant financial investment, particularly on the federal level, panel members pointed out.
However, Mr. McArdle, who also is a member of the National Commission on Transportation Policy and Finance, said the existing federal programs that deal with maintaining the nation’s infrastructure are “going broke” and “lack vision.”
Because of this, new leadership and revenue streams are needed to develop and implement successful long-term solutions to the growing crisis, he said.
“There is no spare capacity in the system,” Mr. McArdle said.
Joseph McGee, vice president of public policy and programs for the Business Council of Fairfield County, said business leaders understand infrastructure repair and expansion will mean additional commercial and individual tax burdens, and that investment is required to achieve the region’s economic growth potential.
“The business community is saying we have to pay for infrastructure,” Mr. McGee said, adding that his own council is now supporting congestion pricing. “Clearly there have to be new taxes for infrastructure investment... the public needs to understand there will be more taxes one way or the other.”
He added, “The question is, can we get the workers here to support that economic growth.”
Shays concluded the conference by pointing to the need for new national leadership on improving and investing in the nation’s infrastructure, and said he is hopeful the issue will be raised as part of this year’s presidential race.
“The irony of the higher energy costs is that a lot of good things will come from it, although we never should have gotten here. We should have anticipated it,” he said of the transportation crisis. “It’s going to soon be a different world out there... There are some major changes coming.”
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