The state”™s new economic chief is fond of saying the biggest challenges lead to the biggest rewards.
Joan McDonald is quick to add, however, that businesses should not expect any immediate reward for suffering what is among Fairfield County”™s biggest economic challenges ”“ the traffic crush on Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway that snarl commutes each day.
It was no accident that Gov. M. Jodi Rell appointed McDonald to replace former banker James Abromaitis as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). McDonald previously led transportation planning at multiple New York agencies and says the topic will occupy much of her new duties at DECD.
While job creation and retention is the department”™s mission, in Fairfield County that comes part and parcel with infrastructure issues, including transportation, energy and housing costs. If the county”™s biggest asset is its well-educated and trained work force, McDonald said its biggest challenge is the transportation infrastructure those employees use to get to work.
Employers have received mixed news on that front from policymakers. The state”™s latest budget allows the much-maligned state Department of Transportation to hire an additional 200 staff. The ongoing widening of Route 7 is expected to improve commute times between Norwalk and Danbury. Shuttle buses carry more than 500 commuters daily between Danbury and Ridgefield across the border into New York. Rell appointed former Pitney Bowes Inc. CEO Michael Critelli to straighten out a botched construction job on Interstate 84 that has fouled traffic for years.
Perhaps most importantly, Rell has pinned a substantial part of her early legacy to improving rail service in Fairfield County, purchasing new rail cars, financing the construction or improvement of rail stations, and proposing a direct link to New York City”™s Penn Station.
The effort appears to be paying off ”“ as of April, the most recent month for which statistics are available, ridership on the Shore Line East line is up 5 percent over 2006, according to the state Office of Rails, and Metro-North is similarly seeing increased use, including by New York residents commuting to Connecticut.
Rail service to Danbury remains spotty, however, and McDonald repeats the mantra of Rell, Rep. Christopher Shays and others: Do not expect any widening of Interstate 95 save for additional lane capacity to accommodate entrance and exit ramps.
For those who advocate such a step, McDonald says one need not look further than New Jersey to find an example of a state with a wide I-95 corridor that still suffers immense traffic tie-ups. She says Connecticut policymakers must remind themselves they are part of a Northeast traffic corridor, and the network is only as good as the systems that connect to it.
“I think (I-95) is a question we are all grappling with,” McDonald said. “It”™s not as if you don”™t do this, and it leads to that. It”™s a combination of initiatives that are needed ”“ expanding rail service, looking at bus ways, responsible growth.”
In addition to new rail initiatives, McDonald said she will examine ways to improve Bridgeport”™s and New Haven”™s ports, giving freight companies an alternative to trucking cargo across the New York border into Connecticut ”“ some 98 percent of all cargo that enters the state is trucked.
And she heartily endorses a fund Rell established to spur the construction of condominiums and apartments near rail stations, saying the strategy has paid dividends in other parts of the Northeast and elsewhere. New Jersey has slapped the label “transit village” on its own strategy.
“Gov. Rell got us on the right track by linking housing to transportation corridors,” McDonald said.
