Officials: Town needs fix to ‘transit desert’

WESTPORT — The Westport Transit District has recently come under fire, with officials again calling for a need to address the transportation in town.

Board of Finance Chair Sheri Gordon recently praised the “great” public transportation of Norwalk and Bridgeport, but called Westport a “transit desert.”

She said if the town plans on building more affordable housing and more development, then transit must be included in those conversations.

“It would be fantastic if we could find a way to reinvent transit,” Gordon said at a recent finance board budget hearing. “We need to do more.”

The root of Westport's transit issues is not solely placed on the Westport Transit District or its Wheels2U Westport train station shuttle service, which is often singled out for its low ridership. The source of the issue is a mixture of not enough public transportation, low ridership on the existing services, the town's increase in residents and traffic, as well as the increase in town development.

It is a townwide issue that needs the help of First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker, District 9 Representative Town Meeting member Sal Liccione said at this week's RTM meeting, where the issue came up again.

“We have to really look at changing things,” he said. “We really have to look at all systems here.”

The finance board has repeatably cut the funding for the transit district over the last few years, though the RTM ultimately restores it.

The same process is currently in motion as the finance board recently proposed to cut half the funding of the Wheels2U service.

The transit district requested about $343,200 with $266,000 of that allocated to Wheels2U in the new budget. The finance board instead proposed leaving only $133,000 for Wheels2U until the end of the calendar year, which would give both boards enough time to iron out a true solution.

Liccione said transit has been a problem for nearly 10 years and in that time, the former first selectmen “have not done enough.” He said it's time to get some action done and doesn't fault Peter Gold, the transit district's director.

“I don't own a car in town. I do take public transit all the time. My opposition is not with Peter, it's really with the town,” Liccione said. “All the employees that work in the area want transit and need transit. We need help here and the First Selectman's office can help us here.”

During the recent RTM meeting, the board voted to reappoint Gold, a District 5 RTM member, to be the director of the transit district, a decision not easily decided on.

The board voted in favor 28-2, with District 2 RTM member Louis Mall and District 3 RTM member Ross Burkhardt opposing. District 3 RTM member Jimmy Izzo and Liccione abstained.

“I have been doing this on the RTM for 12 years and I'm not going to stop doing it,” Gold said. “There is a vision, but I can't implement it myself.”

Along with the reappointing of Gold, the RTM unanimously approved a series of items using American Rescue Plan funding including a $4.5 million two-part sewer project to address the flooding, a near $106,000 allocation to enhance town-wide cyber security as well as a $63,200 allocation for a High and Low Rope Adventure Learning Program at Staples High School.

The first part of the sewer project includes $3.1 million to add sewer lines to 124 homes along Evergreen Avenue, Evergreen Parkway, Tamarac Road, Lone Pine Lane, Gorham Avenue, Compo Road North and Brookside Drive.

A second appropriation of $1.4 million will add 37 homes on Whitney Street, Roseville Road, Fernwood Road, Plumtree Lane, Pamela Place and Ledgemoor Lane to the town's sewer

system.