From point A to point B, Q to Zee
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Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell closed out the first half of 2008 by breaking ground on the planned replacement of New Haven”™s “Q Bridge” on Interstate 95, which planners think will unknot traffic jams heading northbound.
Regional residents and businesses are hoping Rell had the lucky shovel express-shipped to her New York counterpart Gov. David Paterson.
Even as Connecticut began work to triple existing capacity with the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge ”“ nicknamed the Q Bridge ”“ New York struggled to figure out a way to finance the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge that serves to siphon much of I-95 traffic north of New York City via I-287, but which itself is subject to legendary traffic jams for commuters and businesses in Westchester and Rockland counties.
I-95 remains the conceptual central artery of transportation planning in the region, with various federal, state and local agencies feeding ideas on how to solve its clotting problem. Those initiatives range from economic measures like the congestion-zone pricing plan for New York City, narrowly defeated this year in the New York state Legislature; to esoteric approaches such as devices that would transmit traffic and roadway information from commercial vehicles for real-time analysis and dissemination.
New York is cobbling together $3 million in funding for the road information project, which is being promoted by the I-95 Corridor Coalition. Having issued requests for proposals in February and March, at deadline the state had yet to publish a list of finalists. In June, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a pilot test of such a system in the San Francisco area.
For now, there is mixed evidence on whether high gas prices are encouraging drivers to leave their automobiles behind ”“ whether at home or at the parking facility at the nearest rail station. Ridership on Metro-North was up by 1 million passengers between January and April compared to a year earlier, a 4 percent increase. The Northeast was the lone region in the country to see an increase in vehicle miles traveled in April, however, with DOT estimating a 1.4 percent increase from April 2007, with traffic up on urban arterial roads in both Connecticut and New York.
The two states have the worst record in the nation in when it comes to carpooling, according to the most recent statistics published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Astrid Glynn, commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), is counting on increases in both passenger and rail traffic to relieve roadways, as is Joseph Marie, her new counterpart at the Connecticut Department of Transportation who previously led operations for the Phoenix public transit system.
Marie will lead a 2010 split of ConnDOT into a new Department of Highways and a Department of Public Transportation, Aviation and Ports, which Rell is counting on to cut bureaucratic red tape she says delays infrastructure projects.
New York hopes to move forward quickly, as well. In a recent draft for a statewide rail plan, Â the state proposed increasing rail freight traffic 25 percent, in part by enabling “last mile” access to more destinations in metropolitan New York City and Long Island; and by constructing at least three new “inland ports” in the state to transfer freight to and from railcars.
“For nearly a decade, we have been dwelling on the national freight transportation problem,” Glynn testified last month to the U.S. Senate”™s transportation committee. “By now, everything has been said and everyone has said it. We must translate the agreement that there is a problem into a commitment to action. Now is the time to solve it. If we don”™t we will pay a high price.”
Glynn and the rest of NYSDOT are just as obsessed with the sticker shock of a new Tappan Zee Bridge. In January the agency initiated procedural changes intended to speed construction of a replacement span, along with related upgrades to the Interstate 287 corridor that links the bridge to I-95 and several other highways and parkways.
The current plan calls for a final environmental impact statement to be issued in mid-2010; in mid-June, NYSDOT released a 34-page request for proposals (RFP) for financial analysis consulting services on the project. The ultimate cost is expected to exceed $4 billion, a tough sell for New York officials hoping to land federal funds for the project.
At deadline, Congress had yet to plug a hole in the Highway Trust Fund, which faces a $3 billion deficit in the current fiscal year. In January, the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released its final assessment of the nation”™s needs, with the commission formally disbanding in early July after less than two years of work. The commission recommended the nation invest $225 billion annually over the next 50 years ”“ equal to more than $750 per person annually ”“ to upgrade an advanced surface transportation system. The work would be funded in part by an increase in gasoline taxes amounting to between 25 cents and 40 cents per gallon.
To accomplish the goal, the commission recommended the federal government:
”¢ shoehorn more than 100 major federal initiatives into 10 catchall themes including  roads, rails, safety, energy, the environment, and technology;
Ӣ cut the time needed to complete major transportation projects, which often require more than a decade;
Ӣ eliminate pork-barrel projects, instead basing investments on cost-benefit evaluations;
Ӣ create a permanent commission modeled on the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission;
Ӣ consider alternate sources of funding, including fees linked to vehicle miles traveled; tolls; freight fees; passenger rail ticket taxes; and peak-hour congestion pricing in metropolitan areas, such as the plan shot down in New York.