Blame the Legislature for looming cuts, hikes

I’ve been writing for weeks about the profound impact the state Department of Transportation’s impending bus and rail service cuts and fare hikes will have on commuters, local businesses and real estate values.

But with just weeks to go, the folks who can prevent this pain — the state Legislature — appears to be doing nothing.

The proposed cuts will go into effect July 1. A 10 percent fare hike on Metro-North will be coupled with the elimination of off-peak trains on the New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury branch lines as well as Shore Line East.

How are local officials responding? By complaining the proposed cuts are not fair.

“Don’t cut my mass transit, cut someone else’s,” they seem to cry.

“Why is my bus service being cut, but

Hartford and Stamford’s isn’t?” one official asked me.

I told him he was asking the wrong question. Instead, he should ask why any bus or train service was being cut.

It’s as if a crowd was trapped in a burning building with one narrow fire escape and everyone’s screaming: “I deserve to survive. Let the others get burned,” while nobody is working to douse the flames.

The answer isn’t to push away the pain onto others, but to turn off the pain at its source. Legislators can easily stop the state DOT’s plans by just raising the gasoline tax four cents a gallon and diverting the car sales tax into the Special Transportation Fund. Instead, they’re blaming everyone but themselves for the mess they created.

Remember: It was the Legislature that pandered to voters in 1997 by lowering the gasoline tax 14 cents a gallon, a move that cost the STF $3.4 billion in lost transportation spending that could have repaired roads and fixed bridges.

Now the Republicans are so focused on the fall campaign they’re deceiving voters in a PR move only Sean Spicer could enjoy: Arguing the proposed highway tolls are “taxes.”

They are not. Tolls would be a user fee, paid only by those who drive on those roads. Train fares aren’t taxes, are they? You only pay those fares if you take the train.

Do Republicans really think voters are that stupid? Apparently so.

The pols are also piling on the state DOT for being late in opening the new Hartford Line, the commuter rail line between New Haven, Hartford and Springfield, Mass. Our Legislature can’t even deliver a budget on time, let alone understand the complexity of a $769 million railroad construction project that’s taken more than a decade.

It’s not by chance the Republicans are known as the “party of no.” For all their complaining, they have offered no new ideas or embraced the ones that thoughtful observers think are obvious: Asking motorists to pay their fair share with gasoline taxes and tolls.

Metro-North riders already pay the highest commuter rail fares in the U.S., fares that have risen 53 percent since 2000, while motorists haven’t seen a gas tax increase in 20 years. How is that fair?

If the July 1 service cuts and fare hikes go into effect, commuters should know it’s their Legislature that’s to blame.

Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media James Redeker, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, speaks during a recent public hearing on the proposed Metro-North fare hikes and service reductions.