VICTORY LAP BY RAIL
Outgoing Gov. Malloy travels to Mass., is praised for increase in train service
With less than two weeks remaining in office, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy took a victory lap by rail Thursday, traveling to Massachusetts to hear praise for his role in boosting train service between New Haven and Springfield.
Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., and Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the incoming chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, commended Malloy for committing money early for the rail line that’s added trains and passengers in an effort to strengthen the region’s economy.
“It’s one thing to be recognized in your home state,” Larson said at a ceremony at Springfield’s Union Station following a 45-minute trip from Hartford. “It’s another thing to be recognized by your neighboring state.”
Neal said Malloy’s use of federal stimulus money spent by the Obama administration to improve 23 miles of track from Hartford to Springfield was a “consequential decision.”
Malloy compared the kind words to a eulogy.
“Much of the last year has people reading out my obituary before I actually die,” Malloy said.
“I think this is about a message to Massachusetts that Connecticut desires this relationship, this friendship, this camaraderie with respect to rail, that Massachusetts would be far better off if they had additional rail service into and out of
Springfield,” the governor said.
The commuter service, which began in June, connects Springfield and New Haven, with stops in Windsor Locks, Windsor, Hartford, Berlin, Meriden and Wallingford. It’s intended to strengthen economic development on the shoreline, in central Connecticut and western Massachusetts by linking workers to jobs and employers to markets.
Six months into its operation, numbers show that ridership is expected to nearly double, to 584,000 a year from less than 300,000 before the commuter line opened, said John Bernick, assistant rail administrator at the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
The rail service hasn’t been without problems. At the start, bathrooms were unavailable following a complaint that they were not accessible to people with disabilities.
Lawmakers also questioned the decision to lease 16 aging commuter rail cars from Massachusetts to outfit the line.
And at times of high demand, CTrail riders and college students with rail passes have been refused service in favor of those with Amtrak tickets and were instead offered bus service.
Amtrak is violating its agreement by refusing service and needs to add cars to accommodate passenger demand, Malloy said. His administration is discussing the problem with Amtrak, and Gov.-elect Ned Lamont is expected to follow up after he takes office, the governor said.
Amtrak did not immedi- ately respond to an email seeking comment.
Neal said public works upgrades across the U.S. are badly needed. President Donald Trump pledged in 2016 to spend $1.5 trillion to improve highways, bridges, airports, sewer and water systems and broadband, Neal said. “We need to begin to tee it up,” he said.
In meetings with administration officials, “they tell me that they are literally on board,” the Massachusetts congressman said. A final number has yet to be determined, but a coalition of organized labor, business and truckers will be enlisted to “talk about how we can put together a first-class transportation system for the country,” Neal said.
Neal now wants faster east-west rail transportation in Massachusetts, and “I’m ever so hopeful that, again, based on much of the example set here by Gov. Malloy, that we can follow that precedent,” he said.
The line was planned for at least 14 years. State officials announced in 2010 during the administration of Gov. M. Jodi Rell that the line would be completed by late 2015. They were premature.
Many other officials, including then-U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, worked for years to secure the rail funding, and bipartisan efforts resulted in a federal grant of $121 million in 2010, a year before Malloy took office.
Malloy criticized decades-old transportation policy that emphasized cars and highways over rail transportation.
“This is a turnaround strategy for bad public policy that was executed on and, you know, it takes a while to turn it around, but we are doing that,” he said.