Smoke, mirrors and bull**it
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Reader/commenter Pierre DeLecto; no, not Mittens Romney, I don’t think, but hey, could be — if Cliff Asness is/was a reader, and once invited me to a fundraiser at his house for Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan (the highlight of which was sharing a small dinner table with Ari Fleischer and his lovely wife) why not Mitt himself?) writes,
Speaking of hoaxes, Jill Oberlander sent a mass mailing today hailing how Lamont just announced cutting 25 mins off commutes from New Haven to GCT. Presumably, that is a rationale to vote for her to replace Ryan Fazio.
It's a hoax because that was already announced. Even Alex Bergstromm Kasser, the former State Senator, ran on that fib before she quit to divorce her husband and move away with a lesbian lover.
More important, while Lamont and Oberlander may take credit for working on the railroad, all the so-called improvements will be between Greenwich and New Haven. No one boarding in Greenwich will get a shorter commute! That would require Hochul to make improvements! What idiots!
Where is the Snopes fact check when it is much needed?
We have better than Snopes, Pierre, we have Jim Cameron’s column, Talking Transportation. I’m sure Mr. Cameron and I would disagree on many topics, even public transportation, sometimes, but he’s informed, objective, and calls out political fraud when he spots it, as he does in this recent column that I saw over at GreenwichWise.com
Connecticut’s $1.6 Billion Train 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.
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.
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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?’
