• 2012 and future funding prospects;
  
• NTSB on distracted driving...like, where do we park in Stamford?
  
• 2011 EXTENSION OF FEDERAL GAS TAX, HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT $$...
  
• STIMULUS NOT VERY STIMULATING! 
  
• RAIL USERS RAIL!
  
• HOW ABOUT THE STREETCAR ALTERNATIVE?
  
• TUNNEL FROM NJ TO NY UNDER THE HUDSON, HAS THE TIME FINALLY COME?  For commuters, not freight!
  
• FROM ACROSS THE POND - "Street closing" in Manhattan;
  
• It's the infrastructure, stupid!!!  Condition of airplanes;
• Latest on new Commissioner - oops, he's gone now!;  new Commissioner quoted here;
  
• FAA airspace plan story and why we think it doesn't work for us or the rest of CT;
• Intermodal;
• Bike-ped use/issue a part of CT Long-Term Transportation Plan - more here!
• CONGESTION PRICING: gasoline price accomplishing the same thing in N.Y.C. - coming around for another try?  Connecticut Study will be done by February 2009, so it is reported;  new application of the term;  sell off toll roads? TOLLS OR SOMETING ELSE REVENUE PRODUCING:  DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS - Legislature wants change - first, a study;  link to study website here;  some other ideas from the 2007 Long Session and 2009 Long Session below.

• MIANUS RIVER BRIDGE, above, top left;  Minnesota reconstruction, third row left.  Bridgeport accident killed 4 Yale students but the real story is how quickly CTDOT rebuilt the bridge in 2004.
  
• New Commissioner;  new Bureau of Public Transit leader; former CT DOT Commissioner and Weston Selectman Emil Frankel; 
• New Jersey "Transit Village" next idea CT can adopt?
• INTERMODAL:  How about CT?  New bike-rack/bike-on-train policy!
• Link to SWRPA. 
• For the record...registered vehicles in CT.  
• The seven page Courant article can be read on our webpage; I-95 bridge in West Haven, pictured above - no disaster yet.

Link to OLR backgrounder

Next congressional crisis: The federal gas tax?
Deirdre Shesgreen, CT MIRROR
August 23, 2011

WASHINGTON -- Talk about a bumpy road ahead. When Congress gets back to Washington next month, lawmakers face a possible legislative pile-up over the federal gas tax, an important source of funds to Connecticut and every other state with transportation infrastructure needs.

That 18.4-cent levy on every gallon expires on Sept. 30. And it could quickly become a focal point for a fresh fight over taxes and spending, as lawmakers rev up the debate over debt reduction this fall.

At the end of last year, President Barack Obama's bipartisan fiscal commission recommended a gradual 15-cent hike in the federal gas tax starting in 2013. Other debt-reduction groups have similarly looked at ways to shore up funding for the federal Highway Trust Fund, which currently does not take in enough revenue to cover the nation's transportation spending levels.

But raising the gas tax is a non-starter in this Congress, where House Republicans, filled with Tea Party fervor, have opposed any tax increases. And indeed, some conservative groups have even signaled that they would like to see the gas nixed all together, and they see the looming deadline as an opportunity to move in that direction.

"In general, we support the concept of eliminating the federal gas tax and letting the states fund transportation," said Barney Keller, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group.

Keller said the Club has not taken any position on legislation to extend the current gas tax yet, because they first want to see what kind of long-term transportation bill Congress comes up with. That legislation will map out federal highway spending for the next several years, to be paid for by any extension of the gas tax.

Meanwhile transportation advocates are scrambling to shore up support for the gas tax and nervously eyeing the crunched congressional calendar.

"There are 11 legislative days in September before the current extension expires," noted Tony Dorsey, a spokesman for American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). "That gives you a sense of the urgency of this. They've got to move."

Donald Shubert, a spokesman for Keep CT Moving, a transportation advocacy coalition, said he's asked Gov. Dannel Malloy's administration to consider pushing for a "safety valve" provision at the state level that would increase Connecticut's gas tax to compensate in case the federal gas tax lapses.

He noted that Tennessee has a statute on its books that automatically adjusts the state tax upwards if the federal tax declines or ends, so the state can maintain its transportation revenue stream.

"I'm hoping our governor's office will consider something like this," Shubert said, in case Congress deadlocks over the tax.

But a 3-cent-per-gallon increase proposed by Malloy shore up the state's own special transportation fund in his original budget proposal in February eventually was abandoned in the face of hostility by the state legislature.

Emil Frankel, a transportation commissioner for then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and now director of transportation policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said there's probably a clear majority in Congress that favors renewing the gas tax.

"But that's not to say that majority will be able to work its will," he said. "There will be some kind of a battle over it. How serious is it, I don't know...  But one could imagine that there will be difficulties and obstruction and hurdles to the extension."

He pointed to the recent shut-down of the Federal Aviation Administration, after lawmakers failed to agree on a short-term extension of that agency's key programs. For about two weeks, 4,000 federal workers were furloughed and 75,000 construction workers were idled, and the FAA was unable to collect more than $28 million a day in airline taxes.

In addition to the gas tax, lawmakers also have to reauthorize the underlying federal highway and transit programs; the law to keep those programs operating also expires on Sept. 30. And the disputes over a long-term highway bill are at least as complex and contentious as the ones that jammed up the FAA reauthorization.

"In this context, with the Tea Party, the unseemly battle over the debt ceiling, [and] the FAA shutdown... it strikes me as fraught with danger that both [transportation] program authority and the funding sources are ending on the same day," Frankel said.

He and others said it would be devastating if the gas tax was allows to expire, even for a short window. The federal government would not be able to reimburse states for any construction work currently underway, let alone make future commitments for key projects.

"You would have such a huge problem," Janet Oakley, AASHTO's director of policy and government relations. "The construction industry is already on its knees as it is. And this would just send them over the edge, because few states would have the cash flow to pay the contractors without the reimbursement."

Oakley said that a month or so ago, she and her colleagues were pretty nervous about the prospect of a stalemate over the gas tax, particularly in the wake of the FAA impasse. But they've been working furiously in recent weeks to talk to lawmakers about the importance of renewing the fuel tax.

In addition to the 18.4-cent tax on gasoline, there's a 24.4 cent levy on diesel fuel and several other revenue provisions, such as a tax on heavy truck tires, which are all vital to filling the coffers of the Highway Trust Fund. That pot of money is then divvied up for highway and transportation projects across the country.

Oakley noted that in past years, the gas tax has been reauthorized repeatedly without much controversy. But earlier this month, a leading anti-tax conservative, Grover Norquist, hinted that he would like to use the Sept. 30 expiration as a way to spur debate over the federal gas tax.

His group, Americans for Tax Reform, has long argued for the repeal of the gas tax.  Like the Club for Growth, Norquist has argued that the tab for highway and transit projects should fall to the states.

"ATR would love to help begin such a dialogue," Norquist told Politico earlier this month

To the relief of Oakley and others, Norquist has since said he would not consider a vote in favor of extending the gas tax a violation of his group's no-tax-increase pledge. Many Republicans have signed that promise, and Norquist has exercised significant pressure to hold them to it, so his statement makes an extension of the gas tax somewhat easier.

Still, Oakley said that in two decades of working on this issue, she's never seen such uncertainty surrounding the gas tax. "We're in uncharted territory," she said.

That fact that the gas tax and the transportation authorization law are expiring at the same time makes the political calculations a little more charged, she added.

"All of this has to come together," she said.  "It really raises the stakes."

All the same, she said she's optimistic that it will get done.

"I think there will be a flurry of activity the first week when they return," she said. "That's not to say there won't be some drama attached to it, as we saw from the FAA bill. But we think that cooler heads will prevail."

Design errors found in '07 bridge collapse 
DAY
Published on 11/14/2008

Washington - Safety investigators on Thursday singled out undersized steel plates as the chief cause of last year's deadly collapse of a highway bridge in Minneapolis.

But contractors working on the bridge had stockpiled construction material on the center span over the Mississippi River, and that additional weight contributed to the collapse that killed 13 people and injured 145, they said.

Federal investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board that the collapse on Aug. 1, 2007, of the Interstate 35W bridge was unavoidable once gusset plates in the center span failed. When that happened, it dragged other sections of the bridge and rush-hour commuters into the water. The plates helped connect the bridge's steel beams.

Board members criticized Minnesota transportation officials for allowing the storage of 287 tons of construction materials for lane-widening on the bridge. The materials were stored above the gusset plates that fractured. But board members said it was not possible to determine if the materials alone - or factors such as weather and traffic, combined with the added weight - pushed the plates to a breaking point.

”Had the gusset plates been properly sized, this bridge would still be there,” said Bruce Magladry, director of the NTSB's office of highway safety.

Investigators said the half-inch thick plates were inadequate to handle traffic and other stress factors and did not meet engineering guidelines when the bridge was built in 1967. The safety board, as far back as January, had identified design flaws in the plates as a critical factor in the collapse. The board's final ruling was expected Friday.

In July, the House passed legislation authorizing an additional $1 billion next year to rebuild structurally deficient bridges on the national highway system. The bill would require states to come up with repair plans for troubled bridges.

The bridge was called “fracture critical.” That meant a failure of any number of structural elements would bring down the entire bridge.

Safety board investigator Jim Wildey said there is “nothing inherently dangerous” about this type of bridge, as long as each structural element is designed to withstand the expected stress loads.

From the start, the investigation has been laced with politics. Democrats in Minnesota heaped criticism on the state's Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, and Democrats in Congress said the accident showed the nation's roads and bridges were crumbling.

Board members pledged to keep politics out of their deliberations.

”We are here, not to protect other agencies or other organization, we are not here to point fingers or to lay blame, or find fault. ... We are not here to push personal agendas. We're here to seek the truth,” board member Robert Sumwalt said.

In January, Rosenker, who is a Republican, said that design error was a “critical factor” in the collapse. He also said there was little chance that state bridge inspectors would have noticed undersized gusset plates.

Pawlenty took that as a measure of vindication because the initial focus had been on his administration's program for maintaining bridges.

Rosenker's comments angered Rep. Jim Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Oberstar said the early pronouncement committed the safety board to a finding that might not bear out with further investigation.

In St. Paul, Minn., a group of collapse survivors gathered at a National Guard armory to watch the NTSB presentation via the Internet. Michele McLane, 41, said the hearing was “the last door to close for me.”

McLane was able to drive her car safely off the northern end of the span. But she said she was emotionally traumatized. “I finally get it now,” she said. “I finally understand.”

During Barack Obama's campaign for the White House, he cited the bridge collapse and called for spending more on crumbling highways, bridges and tunnels.

The Senate has yet to act on the bill. If no action is taken during a lame-duck session that starts next week, lawmakers would have to start anew on the legislation in January.

HTTP://WWW.NTSB.GOV/  

Jersey exec named to DOT post
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Martin B. Cassidy, Staff Writer
Posted: 12/30/2008 02:45:37 AM EST

The state has hired a longtime New Jersey Transitexecutive to run Connecticut railway and bus lines, including construction of the New Haven rail yard and a planned expansion of mass transit.

James Redeker, 55, vice president of technology services for New Jersey Transit, will become chief of the Bureau of Public Transportation next month. The bureau oversees Metro-North Railroad; manages CTTransit, the statewide bus service; and supports ridesharing programs.  Department of Transportation Commissioner Joseph Marie said Redeker's experience in New Jersey prepares him to handle rail and bus improvements in Connecticut.

"Only with safe, reliable and convenient public transportation will we transition people from their cars to the bus, train or van pool," Marie said. "Jim Redeker will help us deliver on that commitment. His long experience with transit issues in the tri-state area will serve us all well."

The job pays $145,000 a year, DOT spokesman Judd Everhart said.

Redeker joined New Jersey Transit in 1978. He oversaw capital planning efforts, including new stations and parking facilities, and introduced computerized technology, according to the DOT.  Technological improvements included digital video and audio information systems for passengers and computerized ticket sales by machine and the Internet, according to Redeker's resume.

Redeker could not be reached for comment yesterday. In a statement issued by the DOT, he said it is possible to improve Connecticut rail and bus service even in the fiscal crisis.

Marie said he was working with Metro-North Railroad to resolve a request from the Metropolitan Transit Authority to cut four off-peak trains on Metro-North's New Haven Line, or other cost-saving measures.  A plan proposed by the MTA to institute bridge tolls into Manhattan and a "mobility tax" on payrolls could generate billions and avert service cuts, Marie said.

"We are trying to manage this as much as possible," he said.

Marie said his agency was trying to finalize a list of ready-to-build highway and transit projects to put forward for federal funding next year as part of President-elect Barack Obama's infrastructure program .

"We are spending every waking hour pushing ourselves to get projects 'shovel-ready' so that if that legislation is passed we are ready, and Connecticut doesn't miss anything," Marie said.

Without additional funding, the state's current budget deficit will force the DOT to complete fewer projects. Those that could be delayed include a $1.2 billion project to renovate the New Haven Railyard into a train maintenance facility and another project to replace aging catenary wires on the New Haven line.

John Lyons, president and chief executive officer of MetroPool in Stamford, said that higher gas prices earlier this year and changing attitudes have continued to increase use of MetroPool services by area companies and their employees.  In 2008, employees of companies taking part in a corporate challenge conducted by MetroPool traveled 6.8 million fewer "vehicle miles" by use of carpooling, using shuttle services and riding trains, Lyons said.

"Even after the gas prices came back down, we didn't see the behavior change," Lyons said.

Several members of the MetroPool board of directors said they had confidence in Marie's leadership, based on his extensive experience running public transit systems in Arizona and Minnesota.

"We now have a professional in charge," said Floyd Lapp, executive director for the South Western Regional Region Metropolitan Planning Organization. "We have a very able administrator here, and now is the time to support him and try to get things done."

An example above of how e-z pass looks, conceptually.

Bridgeport— Construction workers whooped and cheered Sunday as a parade of cars, escorted by police, traveled on a northbound Interstate 95
overpass for the first time since a fiery tanker crash...

Northbound lanes to open soon; Rebuilding I-95 Temporary span to be rushed in
By DANIEL TEPFER dtepfer@ctpost.com 3-28-04
BRIDGEPORT - With a small cloud of dust and little fanfare, workers Saturday broke loose the last remaining chunk of the Interstate 95 overpass destroyed in a fiery crash.  The jagged chunk tumbled down to land on a huge pyramid of rubble on Howard Avenue.

"The southbound section has been fully demolished," said Art Gruhn, chief engineer for the state Department of Transportation. He said they will now begin laying a foundation for a temporary span to link the gap.  Earlier Gruhn announced some good news amid the disaster that crippled this major Northeast traffic artery. Extensive testing of the steel in the northbound lanes found them to be structurally sound. By midweek northbound traffic could be zooming past Bridgeport again.

However, he said because of the high volume of traffic that normally uses the turnpike, the reopened lanes would only be used for northbound traffic. Southbound traffic will continue to be diverted along local streets.  He said they are sticking to their original timetable that it will be one to two weeks before the whole span is open.

"It's looking very good for shorter rather than longer," he said.  Mayor John M. Fabrizi toured the construction site Saturday and said he was very encouraged by what he saw. He said he was especially happy to hear that the federal government will pick up the tab for the $11.2 million it will
cost to replace the span.  State officials estimate that 120,000 vehicles go over the section of the turnpike every day.

Traffic continued to clog local streets from Stratford to Fairfield as drivers sought a way around the closed turnpike.  State Police at Troop G in
Bridgeport reported that traffic volume on the Merritt Parkway was "extremely heavy" as motorists sought to circumvent the accident area.

"It was the equivalent of a heavy workday load all day long," Trooper Ken Damato, a spokesman for Troop G said.  "We had two small fender bender accidents on the Merritt northbound by exit 44 in Fairfield."

Compounding the extra traffic volume, state police had to contend with certain classes of drivers who apparently ignore signs on the Merritt .    "We had a serious problem with buses, tractor trailers and even recreational motor home vehicles getting on the Merritt between Stratford and Greenwich," Damato said. "First we stopped them, then we ticketed them and then we kicked them off the parkway."

The 18-wheelers are a double headache because what the drivers do to avoid shearing off the roofs of the trucks is "drive down the middle of the road," Damato said. "What they do is straddle the dotted line. If a tractor trailer does that and either hits an abutment or we observe them, then we also may issue them a ticket for reckless driving."

Scott Appleby, Bridgeport director of emergency management, said they had posted alternate travel routes on the city Web site at:
www.ci.bridgeport.ct.us

State police said an investigation is continuing into the crash Thursday night that caused all the destruction.  Despite the mass destruction caused by the crash, police said the 18-year-old Derby girl who caused it may only face a $95 ticket.  A tanker truck driven by 33-year-old Gilbert Robinson, of Galpin Street, Naugatuck, filled with more than 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel was traveling southbound between exits 26 and 25 shortly after 7:30 p.m. when it was hit from behind by a 1987 Toyota Corolla driven by Sarah Waddle, of Bank Street, Derby.

According to police and fire officials, as a result of the impact the tanker truck went out of control and slammed into the Jersey barrier on the right side. The truck slid along the barrier, ripping open the tank and spewing flaming fuel along a 200-yard path along the turnpike.  The truck came to a stop on the Howard Avenue overpass as a fireball more than 50-feet high engulfed the tank. Burning fuel poured between the cracks in the pavement igniting wooden boards on the underside.

The tremendous heat from the fire melted the steel girders under the bridge causing them to sag toward the roadway below.  The fireball melted high-voltage transmission lines stretched a hundred feet above the roadway carrying power from the Connecticut Resources Recovery Association plant.

United Illuminating spokeswoman Mary Ellen Cody said on Saturday crews began replacing the lines but they were not going to "re-energize" them until they got the OK from the crews working on the highway below.  The lines only affect power coming from the trash-to-energy plant and she said no UI customers are affected.

On Saturday, crews began laying a foundation around the gaping hole where the southbound lanes were to hold a temporary span.  The 85-foot-long temporary span, which had been held in storage in New Jersey by its manufacturer, Acrow, was being brought in pieces to the site. He said the span is three lanes wide and is made up of steel panels. The same type of span was used to replace temporarily the Mianus River Bridge after it collapsed on June 28, 1983.

"It's like a giant erector set, a lot of small pieces that have to be bolted together," he said. He said once the temporary span is put together it will be lifted onto the foundation on the southbound section of the overpass.  "It's not something we would want to use as a permanent structure, but it will be more than serviceable until we can put a permanent structure in place," he said.

He said the temporary bridge is rated to carry standard traffic and overweight vehicles will not be permitted over it.

"We are taking a project that would normally take a month to develop and doing it in a matter of hours," he said.  Gruhn stressed that this is a temporary fix and that a permanent structure will have to be built.  The original structure was under construction for three years and was nearly completed as part of a $113.2 million revamping of the highway between exits 24 and 26.  Gruhn said it could take a year and a half to replace the Howard Avenue overpass.

Bridge repair rushed;  Workers tackling damage from fire
by DANIEL TEPFER dtepfer@ctpost.com, 3-27-04
BRIDGEPORT
Delivering on a promise to work around the clock to reopen an Interstate 95 overpass destroyed in a fiery crash just 24 hours earlier, work crews Friday night began demolishing the structure.  When the buckled highway span is torn down, said Chris Cooper, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, "We will begin erecting a temporary bridge that is being trucked here."

Where and how the bridge will be erected and when it will begin carrying traffic will probably be determined this weekend. Northbound lanes may be
reopened as early as next week, officials hope.  Gov. John G. Rowland, standing Friday morning in front of the charred and twisted overpass at Howard Avenue, declared Bridgeport a disaster area and promised $11 million in state and federal aid.

"We have 120,000 cars traveling this roadway a day so our first priority is to get it reopened," he said.

Both sides of the busy stretch of I-95 were closed Thursday night by an explosion sparked by a collision between a tractor-trailer and a compact
sedan, causing the truck to slam into a highway barrier.  About 10,000 gallons of No. 2 fuel oil erupted into 50-foot-high flames that burned about three hours, destroying the highway's surface and melting part of its supporting structure. Remarkably, there were no serious injuries.

Gilbert Robinson, 33, of Naugatuck, was driving the hauler reportedly owned by Island Transport of Connecticut and New York, south of exit 26 about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, State Police said.  The truck was struck from behind by a 1987 Toyota Corolla driven by Sarah Waddle, of Bank Street, Derby, police said.

Waddle said Friday morning she was not injured. "I'm here with the cops now and we're going over everything," she said. No arrests have been made.  The southbound lanes were so severely damaged by the holocaust they will have to be torn down, and state engineers are trying to determine whether the northbound lanes are sound enough to be repaired and reopened.

Meanwhile, thousands of vehicles clogged major roadways from Stratford to Fairfield as commuters were forced onto local streets by detours around the accident scene, between I-95 exits 25 and 27.  Numerous minor accidents resulted from the traffic jam, city police said.  Mayor John M. Fabrizi pledged that police would be deployed in force to manage the traffic onslaught.

Trucks trying to use the Merritt Parkway as an alternate route were being stopped by police and sent to Route 8 and Interstate 84.  The heat of the fire that erupted when the tanker crashed melted the heavy steel girders supporting the overpass, causing it to sag about 7 feet toward
Howard Avenue below. As it cooled, the roadbed resettled, but the underbelly of the overpass was a mass of twisted and blackened metal.

Ronald Jantzen, a state Department of Transportation engineer, said the highway buckled and the recently constructed Howard Avenue overpass
sagged several feet.  The accident scene is in the I-95 corridor construction zone through Bridgeport, a massive rebuilding of the highway that began in 1996 and is projected to cost $400 million.

DOT engineers had earlier considered filling in the area under the wrecked bridge and building a new road surface on top of it, instead of replacing the bridge over Howard Avenue.  Instead, the replacement bridge will arrive on pallets in 10-foot by 6-foot sections. "It'll be kind of like putting an Erector Set together," said Cooper.

In reconstructing how the accident ended in an immense fireball, it appeared that Robinson lost control of the truck after being hit by Waddle's car and crashed into the Jersey barrier on the right side of the highway.  Bridgeport Assistant Fire Chief Fred Haschak said the tank then broke open in
two places.  The fuel oil, which is often used as home heating oil or as diesel fuel in vehicles, was apparently ignited by sparks as the truck scraped along the barrier, leaving a flaming trail for about 200 feet before it came to rest on the overpass above Howard Avenue.

Flames erupted from the top of the truck, creating a huge fireball that melted the insulation on power lines more than 50 feet above the turnpike.
Haschak said flaming fuel poured between cracks in the overpass, igniting wood framing under the bridge.  "It looked just like wood burning in a fireplace," he said.

Bridgeport firefighters, working with firefighters from Fairfield, Norwalk and Waterbury, were at the accident scene into the early morning hours Friday. Fire crews were able to prevent the blaze from spreading to several businesses near the highway.  A Bridgeport firefighter, suffering from an upset stomach from the strong fumes, was treated at the hospital and later released.

Bridgeport Fire Chief Michael Maglione estimated the fire burned at 1,800 degrees to 2,000 degrees, noting steel begins to weaken at 1,400 to 1,500 degrees.  Maglione said cars moving past the accident scene immediately after the crash created a mist of fuel oil in the air, which probably caused the fire. Home furnaces have a device to create such a spray, he said.

"When you put this type of a fuel in a mist form, if it finds a point of ignition it will light," he said.  Some of the diesel fuel found its way south into Cedar Creek, where the state Department of Environmental Protection set up booms to keep the spill from spreading into Long Island Sound.  Two men in a boat set out absorbent mats to collect oil along the creek.

"We laid out booms in big circles and we are making the circles smaller and smaller until we contain the oil and it can be removed by Connecticut Tank Removal," said John Aceto, emergency response coordinator for the DEP. "We expect to get a majority of it and the rest will be burned off by the sun."

The state Department of Transportation, a powerful agency that can trace its origins to the 19th century, has lost its way. For a variety of reasons - the loss of hundreds of workers, a diminished sense of mission, political interference, weak leadership, poor state planning and a departmental culture still mired in the interstate highway era - the DOT has become a sluggish, uncertain and often inept bureaucracy.

Two corruption investigations have led to arrests of DOT employees. The New Britain-Hartford busway is years behind schedule. Someone botched the paperwork needed to overhaul rail cars. A massive snafu came to light last winter involving a $60 million reconstruction project on I-84 in the Waterbury area in which hundreds of defective storm drains were installed and two bridges and an exit ramp were improperly built. The most recent revelation was a cutback in bridge inspections, an unsettling surprise to the many residents who remember the 1983 Mianus River bridge collapse.

This bureaucratic meltdown has come at a time when the state's highway-oriented transportation system is increasingly challenged by traffic congestion, fuel costs, pollution concerns and a backlash against land-gobbling sprawl development. In a 1999 report, consultant Michael Gallis said increasing congestion in the vital I-95 corridor toward New York threatened the state's economic dynamism, putting the state in danger of becoming "a giant cul-de-sac, or dead zone" in the global economic network. Since then, traffic has gotten worse.

But crisis is often a prerequisite for change, and there have been stirrings of change in the past two years. Gov. M. Jodi Rell and legislative leaders pushed for $3.6 billion in transportation funding, the largest financial commitment to transportation in two decades. Mrs. Rell named a new DOT commissioner, Ralph J. Carpenter, last year.

After more revelations about the I-84 fiasco, she announced in late April that a task force headed by Pitney Bowes Chairman Michael Critelli would lead a "top-to-bottom reorganization" of the DOT. The group is charged with "examining and redesigning the DOT, its mission, direction, business practices and organizational structure."

Thus there is a rare chance to break out of the cul-de-sac, to create a new vision and mission for the DOT that will provide the mobility the state needs for 21st-century prosperity.

"Connecticut has a huge opportunity right now," said Jonathan Orcutt, former executive director of the nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which did a study of the DOT in 2004. But change won't come easily to a department that has done things its own way for a long time.

The Highwaymen

The DOT began as the State Highway Commission in 1895, a time when privately owned railroads dominated intercity transportation and the advocates for paved roads were bicyclists.

The commission, later called the Department of Highways, moved ahead, paving the old turnpikes and post roads that crisscrossed the state. Traffic congestion started becoming a problem in the 1920s, as cheap cars and cheap gas foretold a revolution in transportation. The department began what has been an eight-decade response to congestion - it widened the roads. It also built elegant new roads. The first section of the Merritt Parkway was completed in 1938, and people rode out on Sundays to picnic alongside the park-like thoroughfare.

After the restrictions attendant to World War II were lifted in the mid-1940s, road-building began in earnest. With the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956, building the interstate highway system became the state and national transportation mission. With the highways came the unprecedented era of postwar suburbanization, a force that took thousands of middle-class people out of the state's large cities to new ranch or split-level houses in the suburbs.

In 1969, the highway department merged with the Department of Aeronautics, the Connecticut Transportation Authority and the Commission of Steamship Terminals into a new Department of Transportation, one of the first comprehensive transportation departments in the country.

The DOT would almost by happenstance pick up oversight of commuter rail and bus operations, as increasing use of cars made both services unprofitable. But it remained overwhelmingly a highway agency. In 1975, DOT commissioner Samuel Kanell told an interviewer, "I don't think you'll ever get Americans out of their cars." Other commissioners would echo his sentiment and its underlying philosophy.

What developed in the department was what planning consultant Toni Gold of Hartford calls a "highway engineer culture." The leaders, and often the commissioners, were civil engineers who specialized in building highways.

Although road-building demands engineering expertise, the danger of having the engineers in charge was that the entire focus would be on highway efficiency.

"There was a mentality that we design roads to move people from point A to point B and all else is nonsense," said state Rep. David McCluskey, a member of the legislature's transportation committee.

This thinking led to the disastrous decision - here and across the country - to run interstate highways through cities. That continued until "highway fighters" pushed back. Had activists not stopped them in the 1970s, there would have been highways built through the West Hartford reservoirs and Hartford's Bushnell Park.

Over the years, the DOT developed a symbiotic relationship with highway engineering and construction companies, often locally owned entities that solidified their positions with substantial political contributions to gubernatorial candidates. Though its downside has become apparent in recent years, this was the system that got the roads built.

The mania for cars and highways all but killed train, trolley and bus service. It is said the last time the late and lamented New Haven Railroad made money was hauling fill for I-95.

For a time, it didn't matter. The interstate highway system transformed the state, connecting it to national markets and providing a previously unimagined level of mobility. The roads could handle the load.

But eventually the loss of public transit did matter. This is a lesson from the state's bold and innovative but ultimately inadequate response to the Mianus tragedy.

Collapse

On June 28, 1983, a section of I-95 highway bridge over the Mianus River in Greenwich collapsed, killing three people and seriously injuring three more. The tangle of bodies and mangled vehicles that fell 70 feet to the peaceful little river sent a horrific message that Connecticut's transportation system was in dire need of repair.

The collapse was followed by another embarrassment, a series of Courant stories about the ineffectiveness of the state's bridge inspection program. Gov. William A. O'Neill vowed that would change.

Transportation had suffered in the lean fiscal years of the mid-1970s because it competed for funds from the general budget. Mr. O'Neill understood that the state needed a reliable and sustainable means of paying for its transportation infrastructure.

At the governor's direction, Anthony V. Milano, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, DOT Commissioner J. William Burns and others prepared a plan.

Its principal innovation was a 10-year, $5.6 billion Special Transportation Fund, to be supported by an increase in the gas tax, motor vehicle fees and other revenue sources.

The Special Transportation Fund worked, and worked well. By 1993, the 10-year anniversary of the Mianus collapse, the state's reconstruction program had become a national model. Connecticut had gone from 35th to fifth in the nation in transportation capital expenditures. Road capacity and safety were improved and many major highway projects were completed. Bridges were repaired or replaced, and bridge inspections were brought up to national standards.

The fund grew to $10 billion and beyond as more projects were added. By moving ahead of most other states, Connecticut captured a disproportionate amount of federal money for the work. Connecticut was on the move again.

Yet by 1999, just six years later, consultant Gallis was saying - in a report written for the nonprofit Connecticut Regional Institute for the 21st Century - that the state's transportation system was choked and becoming a major drag on the economy. What happened?

Former state senator and transportation committee co-chairman Michael P. Meotti, who now heads the United Way of Connecticut, said the post-Mianus effort fixed a specific problem - the deterioration of roads and bridges - but not the whole problem. It was not a comprehensive statewide mobility strategy. There was no plan to reduce the use of roads and highways. Investment in mass transit in this period, as would soon enough become apparent, was woefully inadequate. Traffic got worse.

Congestion was particularly severe on I-95 in Fairfield County. As Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy put it, "I-95 is a parking lot and the Merritt Parkway is a museum." So bad was the situation that officials considered letting drivers use breakdown lanes or even the prohibitively expensive option of adding another deck to the highway.

House Speaker Moira Lyons of Stamford badgered Gov. John G. Rowland to do something. In 2000, he called a transportation summit, which led to the creation of the Transportation Strategy Board the following year.

The board reported back in 2003 with a $6 billion list of projects for highways as well as transit. Mr. Orcutt, now senior policy adviser to New York City transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, said that although the Transportation Strategy Board had some good ideas, it was advisory and thus reliant on the governor, the DOT and the legislature: "the very actors whose inaction or lack of innovation led to the strategy board's creation."

Breakdown

Meanwhile, the DOT was almost literally going off the rails. In what was soon called the "winter of woe," in 2003-04, about 35 percent of the rail cars on the Metro-North New Haven line broke down, leaving commuters stranded in the cold. Some of the well-worn rolling stock was 30 years old.

As a stopgap measure, the state bought 33 used rail cars from Virginia. These needed to be overhauled before they could be used. The DOT put out a flawed request for proposals to get the work done. There was no response. The department then failed to issue another RFP. The cars sat idle for months, until Mrs. Rell learned of the oversight by happenstance and went ballistic on DOT Commissioner Stephen Korta II.

The rail car bungle was not an isolated incident.

Increasing congestion in the I-84 corridor west of Hartford in the late 1990s had led to plans for a 9.6-mile bus-only route from New Britain to Hartford. Studies showed a busway would be the least expensive way to ease highway traffic and would lure the most riders.

Part of the appeal of busways is that they can be built relatively quickly, but that hasn't happened here. In 2005, the Federal Transit Administration lost confidence in the state's ability to deliver the $335 million project and downgraded it from "recommended" to "not recommended" for federal funding.

Mrs. Rell, DOT officials and Capitol Region Council of Governments planners scrambled to get federal funding approved again. Construction of the project is now scheduled to begin in 2009 - three years after the busway was initially supposed to open.

Also, the risk inherent in the close relationship between DOT workers and contractors was becoming apparent. In 2004, a department inspector, James Murray, pleaded no contest to three counts of taking bribes from contractors in exchange for overlooking shoddy work.

In 2004, federal authorities uncovered irregularities in how the DOT's rail operations unit awarded contracts. Last year, a high-ranking official, Raymond Cox, pleaded guilty to theft and obstruction of justice. Three senior officials resigned or retired because of the contract scandal.

In early 2006, five employees of the highway agency, as well as a Massachusetts contractor, were arrested in connection with a bid-rigging scheme. The charges allege that the contractor bribed the employees to win a road-sealant contract. Perjury charges against one DOT employee have been dropped; the other cases are pending.

These may not be the only arrests. Mrs. Rell's promise earlier this year to overhaul the department followed the fouled-up rebuilding of I-84 in Waterbury and Cheshire, one of the worst highway construction failures in state history. Incredibly, some 300 defective storm drains were installed as part of a badly flawed underground drainage system. Also, two bridges and an exit ramp were improperly built. And 70 light poles with faulty brackets were put up, among other problems.

The I-84 job had been given in 2002 to a contracting firm, L.G. DeFelice Inc. of North Haven. The firm, apparently beset with financial problems, went out of business in 2006 with the project unfinished. DeFelice had gotten into trouble in 2004 for installing concrete curbing for free at the home of a DOT regional engineer.

The engineering firm paid to inspect DeFelice's work on I-84, the Maguire Group, failed to do so, state officials say. The DOT violated its own policy by assigning a project engineer to the job who was simultaneously heading two other construction jobs. Project engineers are supposed to oversee one job at a time to prevent construction errors.

"There were serious mistakes at all levels," said Office of Policy and Management Secretary Robert L. Genuario at a legislative hearing Wednesday. "The people of Connecticut did not get what they paid for."

The state has sued the contractors. State and federal criminal authorities are digging into the $60 million fiasco.

DeFelice has regrouped as Hallberg Contracting Corp. and been hired by a bonding company to work on two state jobs.

The I-84 debacle made it clear that it was time to overhaul the DOT. Highway construction was what the department was supposed to be good at.

What Went Wrong

In its postwar heyday, the DOT was a powerful and semi-autonomous fiefdom that could make big things happen. But in recent years, forces inside and outside the department have challenged it as never before. These include:

MISSION. In the decades following World War II, the state and federal transportation mission had a clear focus - to build the interstate highway system, with its related network of state highways. The system is all but finished. Now what?

The loss of a clear mission may explain the pointless, pork-laden bridge-to-nowhere projects in the most recent federal transportation bill. Lack of direction in any organization can lead to inertia and incompetence.

While federal authorities search for a new mission - the National Surface Transportation Study Commission is holding hearings around the country on this issue - some states have aggressively defined their own missions involving transit and transit-oriented development. Connecticut is still building highways.

When the Tri-State Transportation Campaign examined 2005 DOT figures, it found that 76 percent of the state transportation improvement money and 84 percent of its "flexible funds" go to highways. With the authorization in the past two years of $3.6 billion toward highway and mass transit projects, the percentage of spending shifts somewhat to transit, but still favors highways.

BUREAUCRACY. Reductions spearheaded by Mr. Rowland early in this decade took more than 900 employees from the DOT. The workforce dropped from 4,058 in 1999 to 3,151 in 2004. First came layoffs, which took younger workers. Then, in 2003, came an early retirement buyout aimed at senior people. In 2003-2004 alone, the department lost 436 employees. Out the door went experience, institutional knowledge and management talent.

The cuts were not spread evenly; some DOT departments were harmed more than others. For example, three layers of management were pared off the top of the DOT's finance and administration bureau. There and elsewhere, inexperienced people had to step into jobs for which they were not yet prepared, often with no support structure or mentors.

Also, budget cuts led to the elimination of some leadership training programs, meaning the department wasn't developing the mid- and upper-level managers at the rate it needed them.

"It made for a very difficult time for everybody," said Gale Mattison, a finance and administration expert who has been lent to the DOT by the Office of Policy and Management to help rebuild the department.

In any event, the DOT became a bureaucracy that is sometimes overwhelmed, sluggish and - although the I-84 mess might suggest otherwise - cautious to a fault.

"The Rowland years created a bureaucracy that is totally risk-averse," said Robert W. Santy, head of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center. "We have government by regulatory compliance. There is no reward for trying something different, and there are thousands of reports mandated by the legislature to cover any eventuality,"

Those who do business with the DOT complain that layers of review, inside and outside the agency, add months to the process of awarding bids and executing contracts. Planning and design contracts that took three to six months to process just five years ago now typically take six to 12 months. These delays can have serious impacts on project schedules and cost. Yet for all of this, oversight of the I-84 project was stunningly inadequate.

The department has also endured its share of patronage appointments. Under Mr. Rowland, for example, one of the DOT's deputy commissioners was James A. Adams, brother-in-law of powerful lobbyist and Rowland confidant Jay Malcynsky. Another deputy was former Waterbury state senator and lobbyist Louis S. Cutillo, an early Democratic backer of Mr. Rowland's. Neither appointee had a compelling background in transportation.

INNOVATION. The creation of the Special Transportation Fund in 1985 was an inventive, cutting-edge response to a major problem, and applauded as such around the country. There's been very little innovation at the DOT since. The department resisted new ventures such as the Griffin Line light-rail project from Hartford to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks and instead continued to focus on highways.

But projects such as the Q Bridge in New Haven point to the need for innovation. The department plans to spend $1.5 billion to rebuild and expand the elevated bridge on I-95 that crosses New Haven Harbor, even though, by the department's own estimates, the new bridge will have the same level of congestion the old one does in just three years.

PLANNING. The Transportation Strategy Board was created in 2001 to develop a long-term transportation plan for the state. The board's 2007 report, "Moving Forward," promotes a progressive, multimodal transportation system tied to land-use policy.

Ideally these recommendations would inform the DOT's long-range and master plans, which would ultimately generate the projects that would realize the vision.

But the planning process is subject to political caprice and gets whipsawed from all sides.

The governor, the State Bond Commission and the legislature all have a say in funding for DOT projects, and often call the tune. The department, for example, planned to replace aging rail cars several times in the past decade, but Mr. Rowland chose not to pay for them. He considered opening the shoulders of I-95 to rush hour traffic, something not in any DOT plan.

The federal government also interferes with DOT plans via congressional earmarks - funds for special projects - a bridge, road, deck or study - that can interrupt the flow of work. "Earmarks just kill us," said former deputy commissioner Carl Bard, a civil engineer who retired last year.

Then there is town planning. Sometimes, the DOT will come in and fix an intersection to resolve traffic congestion, then the town will allow a mall to be built, creating a new traffic problem.

Conversely, local officials and residents have ended up battling the department over the design of road projects, in some cases regretting the day they asked the department for help. "Many towns hate the DOT; they own the right of way and insist on maintaining traffic flow as if there was no town there," said Ms. Gold, the Hartford consultant who has worked with highway designers in several states.

In the 1990s, there was a movement across the country to better blend road design into communities; to balance the needs of vehicle movement with those of pedestrians, bicyclists, bus riders, shop owners and others. This concept, which in planning jargon is called "context-sensitive design" or "context-sensitive solutions," envisions a community planning process that takes all needs into account.

Some at the DOT - deputy commissioner Bard was one - tried to push the department in that direction. But despite those efforts, the department battled municipalities in recent years over the width and design of Columbus Boulevard in Hartford, the widening of Route 4 in Harwinton, the widening of historic Route 2 in North Stonington, the widening of Route 80 in North Branford and other projects. In Norwalk, seven environmental and community groups went to court in 2005 to block a redesign of the Route 7/Merritt Parkway interchange, which they viewed as way too big and destructive of the historic character of the parkway.

Some projects have gone more smoothly - the redesign of Albany Avenue in Hartford, for one - but the department is still fighting community objections in other places, such as the redesign of New Britain Avenue in the Elmwood section of West Hartford.

"They came in with a design to move traffic from point A to point B. That wasn't what we had in mind. Going through Elmwood, we wanted to make it pedestrian-friendly, with crosswalks, some cutouts for buses, barriers separating direction flows, street trees, maybe bring back some elm trees," said town manager Jim Francis. "They want it wide; we'd prefer more sidewalk space."

Here, as in most of the other cases, the department has been responsive and made some modifications to its design. The goal would be a planning process that avoids the problem in the first place.

LEADERSHIP. When DOT Commissioner James F. Sullivan, a longtime department highway engineer, announced his retirement in 2002, members of a Transportation Strategy Board subcommittee went to Mr. Rowland with the names of potential commissioners from around the country who they believed could shake up the department and turn it in a new direction.

But Mr. Rowland instead appointed another longtime department highway engineer, James F. Byrnes Jr. He became acting commissioner in 2002, commissioner in 2003 and retired in 2004. He was replaced by Mr. Korta, who had been the administrator of Bradley Airport and the department's aviation administrator as well.

Mr. Korta, well-liked and successful at the airport, was thought by some insiders to be in over his head as DOT commissioner. In 2006, Mr. Korta chose to return to his classified post as aviation administrator.

Last summer, Mrs. Rell replaced Mr. Korta with Ralph J. Carpenter. Except for two years as motor vehicles commissioner, he had spent his career as a state police officer, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. (He was one of the troopers who responded to the Mianus bridge collapse in 1983.) Mrs. Rell was criticized - by this page and others - for appointing a cop and not a cutting-edge transportation expert. Some still hold this view.

But Mr. Carpenter has won over a number of legislators and transportation advocates with candor and a public commitment to smart growth, intermodal transportation and transit-oriented development.

"I know this state is being ruined [by sprawl] and I don't want this agency to be a part of it," he said.

Mr. Carpenter is trying to restore efficiency and change a culture in which workers tolerated corruption. "There are a lot of terrific people here, but everybody let those issues ride out. We never got the systemic problems solved. We are taking a hard look at our business practices," he said.

Activists and legislators looking for a change agent at the DOT seem willing to give Mr. Carpenter the chance to be that person. But the real change agent must be Mr. Carpenter's boss. "You cannot do this without really strong leadership from the governor. She's got to use her political capital," said Kip Bergstrom, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council and former economic development director in Stamford.

A New Vision

Before reorganizing the DOT, state officials must decide what, exactly, the department is supposed to do. There must be a vision on which to build a strategy for the department to execute.

For the past half-century, the department's overriding mission has been to build highways. Now the highway system is all but completed, heavily used and inexorably filling up. The DOT must now create a transportation system with a mix of trains, planes, buses, vans, bicycles and boats - and encourage such things as telecommuting and flex time - to achieve optimal movement of passengers and freight.

In its early years, the DOT viewed transportation as an end in itself. It sacrificed places for the ability to travel through them. In the future, the department must see its role as part of a broader effort to create an attractive, efficient, sustainable and prosperous state.

To get there, transportation must be tied to land use, economic development and housing policy, all integrated into a meaningful state plan of development. Elements of the plan should include:

TRANSIT AND TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

After two decades in which their predecessors underfunded mass transit, Mrs. Rell and legislative leaders have put $3.6 billion in transportation funding on the table, much of it for mass transit. The department must move as quickly as possible to restore commuter rail to the New Haven-Hartford line and continue it north into Massachusetts, possibly reaching southern Vermont. The New Britain busway should be finished, Shore Line East rail service should be expanded and light-rail service explored for fast-growing eastern Connecticut. In the new DOT, at least as much money must be committed to mass transit as is committed to highways.

Simultaneously, the department, working with towns, regional entities and other agencies, must help spur commercial and residential development around transit stops.

This brings the density that makes transit work, and lessens development pressure on the state's fast-dwindling supply of open space. The DOT has taken the first step by hiring a deputy commissioner, Albert Martin, to lead this effort. He'll need support from the top. The transportation funding bill, which is down to the final details in the legislature, has money for pilot projects in transit-oriented development.

A HIGH-SPEED RAIL CONNECTION FROM HARTFORD TO NEW YORK (AND EVENTUALLY BOSTON)

The DOT was at its best when focused on a big vision, whether building the Connecticut Turnpike or responding to the Mianus tragedy. A one-seat, one-hour trip to New York could be the kind of man-on-the-moon goal to again inspire the department's best work.

The benefit would be enormous for the central part of the state; it would bring Hartford into the New York economic sphere. Companies could bring back-office work or headquarters here, as they did in Stamford a generation ago. The influx of more companies, entrepreneurs and investors cannot help but enhance the region's economy. The eventual addition of high-speed transit to Boston would put Hartford in the center of a Boston-New York mega-region, also an enticing economic prospect.

MAINTAIN THE INFRASTRUCTURE, A POLICY KNOWN AS "FIX IT FIRST"

When the widening of the western portion of I-84 and the eastern section of I-95 are finished, the state's highway system will essentially be complete. There are plans to build or widen more highways. Unless it can be shown these projects are essential - critics say they are not - these projects should be shelved in favor of keeping the existing roads and bridges in top repair.

This is not the plan at the moment.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has recently studied the DOT's projected spending for 2007-10. In "Reform: The Road Not Taken," the authors say that although the state is spending more on mass transit, the majority of capital funding - 59 percent - is allocated to highways and bridges. Of that amount, more than 60 percent is dedicated to road expansion projects.

This is a reversal from earlier in the decade, when nearly three-quarters of the money was aimed at maintenance. The danger, the report says, is that more than three-quarters of existing road lane miles are rated "less than good" and a third of the bridges are rated deficient (though, the department notes, not in danger of collapse).

"Fix it first" should be a broad enough policy to embrace the repair of old mistakes. For example, New Haven has gotten a grant to study turning Route 34, the downtown "highway to nowhere," into a boulevard, to help connect downtown to the Yale medical campus and other entities. This is a sensible idea that the DOT should support.

The department should also embrace a community effort in Hartford to ameliorate the damage done to the urban fabric by the Aetna Viaduct, the half-mile elevated section of I-84 that cuts through the heart of the city. The viaduct is nearing the end of its useful life. Community activists want a bold long-term plan; possibly to bury the roadway. The DOT's current plan is to repair the viaduct in place, prolonging the problems for another 20 years.

FULLY EMBRACE CONTEXT-SENSITIVE SOLUTIONS

All key DOT people should be trained in this discipline, as happens in New Jersey and elsewhere. The department should consider hiring land-use planners, landscape architects and others who can help execute the policy. When the department works with towns, the premise should be complete streets - streets that work for bikes, pedestrians, residents and businesses as well as cars - and the planning should start in the community.

The DOT should strongly consider rewriting its highway design manual, as Massachusetts has done, to incorporate the principles of context-sensitive design into all phases of roadway design and construction.

TAKE BICYCLE TRAVEL SERIOUSLY

As cities across the country push eagerly to create bike paths and multi-use trails, the DOT pays cursory attention to this energy-friendly recreation and travel alternative.

In December, leaders of the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance asked the governor and Commissioner Carpenter to focus on bike issues such as trails and safety. A department official sent a dismissive response to the effect that there was no money for bicycle facilities or safety promotion activities. But the Tri-State Campaign's 2007 study found that the DOT is not taking full advantage of flexible federal dollars that could be used for bike or pedestrian facilities.

That's not the spirit. A good trail network can get people out of their cars and is a tremendous recreational asset to boot. That's why volunteers have been spearheading an effort to build trails, with help from another state agency, the Department of Environmental Protection.

This fragmented network could be sewn together much more quickly if the DOT were involved. And since a trail could be viewed as either a narrow road or a wide sidewalk, why aren't the contractors more interested?

WITH LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL, CEDE MORE AUTHORITY TO BRADLEY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

In most states, the major airport is run by an independent, self-funded airport authority. Here, it's run by the DOT. The department has always done an excellent job on the operations, or "air side," of the airport. The debate is over what is known as the "land side" - the marketing, promotion and business development at Bradley.

Several consultants and agencies who have studied the airport in the past decade all concluded the airport could benefit from more independent and business-oriented leadership. Most airport authorities aren't hamstrung by state procurement, personnel and contracting rules, and thus can respond quickly to the fast-changing air travel market.

For example, it took the Bradley board nearly 18 months to hire a marketing director a few years ago. They got an excellent one in Kiran Jain. But last year, because of constraints in the airport's funding formula, her budget was cut.

"We need to manage to a market, not to a budget," said Michael T. Long, a recently retired Ensign-Bickford executive and vice chairman of the Bradley board of directors.

One option is to create an independent airport authority, with a Massachusetts presence to increase the marketing footprint. Another is to empower the board of directors, which at present doesn't have the authority given to most boards of directors.

This would keep the DOT at the airport, and there are advantages to that, not only with moving planes but with maintaining roads. And Bradley is generally doing well. But giving the directors the authority to hire and fire an executive director, approve budgets and contracts and otherwise oversee the airport should make the airport more entrepreneurial and give it the flexibility to respond to challenges such as the one posed by new service going into Stewart International Airport in nearby Newburgh, N.Y.

The transportation bill, which legislators expect to be finished by the end of the month, gives the strategy board money to update earlier studies of Bradley management. It doesn't need another study.

A New Day

Change is daunting, especially in a bureaucracy, particularly one in which the people have grown up doing things a certain way. Change is difficult when there's a powerful assemblage of road builders, consultants and suppliers with a deep interest in the status quo.

Change is also expensive. Gov. Rell and legislative leaders patted themselves on the back for making the largest fiscal commitment to transportation in two decades - $3.6 billion over 10 years.

That may not be enough. In 2005, Massachusetts committed $31 billion over 20 years to improving the state's transportation infrastructure. If Connecticut is to have a balanced transportation system, with the ability to move people and freight without causing more sprawl and pollution, we will have to pay for it.

The recent revelation that the department has been cutting back on bridge inspections to save money does not inspire hope. That the governor and some legislative leaders were thinking of cutting the gas tax for the summer is shortsighted. Former DOT Commissioner Emil Frankel, who served under Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in the early 1990s, estimated at a panel earlier this year that if the state hadn't cut the gas tax in the mid-1990s by 14 cents a gallon, from 39 cents to 25 cents, there would be more than $2 billion available for transportation improvements.

But if the DOT is directed to create a new transportation system, what should the agency look like?

Obviously it will continue to do many of the things it does now. Roads will have to be plowed and kept in repair, trains must be operated and maintained, airports have to be run. The department should also do some things differently. The Waterbury fiasco points to the need for review of contracting, design and quality control procedures. The DOT needs to reward risk-taking and innovation.

Externally, the department needs to be more of a partner with other agencies, regional planners and town officials. The governor 's responsible-growth initiative announced last fall creates a framework in which the DOT can work with other agencies toward more compact, transit-oriented growth.

Mrs. Rell created an Office of Responsible Growth in the state's Office of Policy and Management. It has a steering council made up of the state agencies involved in land use: economic development, environmental protection, transportation, agriculture and public health, as well as the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and the Connecticut Development Authority. The idea is that they work together. Mr. Carpenter, DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy and other department heads have enthusiastically endorsed the idea, and the early signs are positive, said OPM undersecretary W. David Levasseur, who is coordinating the effort.

As for the department's internal structure, there is growing sentiment to break off bus, rail and ferry service into a transit authority, separate from the DOT with its own source of funding.

This would have the advantage of seeing that mass transit gets the money it needs. There was a bill introduced in the legislature this year to create a transit authority. The transportation committee chose to wait for a year to see whether Mr. Carpenter's department could deliver a multimodal system, although Sen. Donald DeFronzo, the Senate co-chairman, has wondered aloud if the agency is too big and fragmented to be optimally effective.

The most imaginative suggestion for reorganizing the department came from former state Sen. Meotti, who thinks the agency should be organized around mobility requirements rather than around different modes of transportation. "This is something companies went through 20 years ago, when they realized they were organized around their products rather than their customers' needs," he said.

He suggests that the DOT organize around two or three major transit corridors, and serve the mobility needs of the corridor, by whatever modes make sense. So instead of a highway bureau and a transit bureau, there might be a coastal corridor bureau and a central corridor bureau. The idea would be to break down the highway vs. rail mentality and focus on the best ways to move people and goods.

This invites the intriguing possibility of creating a parallel effort with the state Department of Economic and Community Development. The two agencies would work together to bring mobility, commerce and housing to the same corridors, and to the land around Bradley Airport. This would have the added benefit of new DECD Commissioner Joan McDonald's extensive transportation background.

This is the kind of change Mr. Critelli's study group should explore. The task force - which is heavy on government and business people and short on transportation reformers - should speak with officials who have changed transportation departments around the country, and study how European countries are moving goods and people.

It's a new day. The DOT has to change. Connecticut has to get moving again.

Another costly surprise from the DOTStaff Reports
Stamford ADVOCATE
Article Launched: 04/14/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

What is going on at the state Department of Transportation?

DOT officials dropped a bombshell Tuesday when they told some members of the Legislature's Transportation Committee that the agency would need $250 million to $300 million within the next month to keep a Metro-North rail maintenance facility planned for New Haven on track. The DOT said it is needed to assure the design is completed so the project can go out to bid in November and construction can start next spring.

This disclosure came soon after equally startling news that the overall cost of the facility - a key element in revitalizing the New Haven Line commuter railroad - has dramatically risen from the $300 million appropriated in 2005. The cost estimate is now $732 million in "current dollars," and it could exceed $1.17 billion when the facility's third and final phase is completed in 2019.

The DOT officials disclosed the funding timetable after being summoned by the committee members to the Capitol for an update on the rail-yard project.

This maintenance facility is absolutely essential for housing and maintaining the 380 new M8 passenger cars that will begin arriving late next year for the commuter rail line.

There are only four weeks remaining in the General Assembly session, and the shocking revelation throws a curve at lawmakers who face tough spending decisions during the next month in the face of declining state revenues.

Some of the escalating costs for the maintenance facility are understandable because of inflation and continually rising prices of materials. But a quadrupling of the original cost estimate?

The revelations led to plenty of finger-pointing at the Capitol on Wednesday. Democratic lawmakers blamed the Rell administration for keeping the escalation quiet, while the governor charged the DOT with adding major elements to the rail yard that she had not seen or approved, including a warehouse, a parking garage and a walkway over the tracks.

The finger-pointing will no doubt continue, but it seems that the beleaguered DOT has muffed another assignment in a big way. State officials from the governor on down must sort out this mess and figure out how to make it work - and in the next session press forward with DOT reorganization.

Sen. McDonald not related to the fast food company, we think.

Conn. reaches deal to upgrade travel plazas

• How does helicopter-small plane crash (see graphic above) figure into the FAA flight path issue?  CLICK HERE for graphic illustrating how this happened.
• F.A.A. separates the issues of general aviation and commercial flights, so we understand now, in July of 2009 - graphic here.
• Att'y General makes Federal Case;
• So what else is news?  The runway design, for one.  Also, "About Town" wonders about this "proximity event" - NTSB to investigate?  Was it a computer system design bug (handoff from Westbury to JFK)?
• AIRSPACE COALITION

Hole in Qantas plane (one of the older ones in fleet), left; Airbus A320 in the Hudson - "landing" graphic and map from NYTIMES!  Culprit?  Yup.  Plural. Birds to blame in Brazil event?

Brazilian searchers found confirmed debris from the plane on Saturday 'More bodies found' from plane Three more bodies have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean near where the Air France flight is thought to have crashed last week, Brazil's navy says. That raises the total to five, after two bodies were found on Saturday. Officials say other bodies have also been spotted in the area and ships are being sent to recover them. They were found some 800km (500 miles) north-east of Brazil's Fernando de Noronha islands where the AF Flight 447 disappeared in turbulent weather. Also on Saturday, the Brazilian navy recovered the first confirmed debris from the plane, including a briefcase containing a ticket for Flight 447. Other found debris thought to be linked to the flight included a blue seat and a backpack containing a computer. The remains were found not far from where the last signal from the plane was received on Monday. They were taken to the islands of Fernando de Noronha, where they were to be examined by experts

Capt Sullenberger was hailed as a hero after landing his plane on the Hudson Hudson pilot urges safety funding The pilot of a plane that ditched into the Hudson River in New York has called on US airlines to invest more in recruiting and training pilots. Capt Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger told Congress his pay had been cut by 40% in recent years, and the industry might not attract the "best and brightest". "The single most important piece of safety equipment is an experienced, well-trained pilot," he said. He was hailed as a hero after January's landing, which all on board survived. At the hearing, an air traffic controller recalled the captain telling him he would land in the river, and thinking this was a "death sentence". Controller Patrick Harten said it felt like hours before he heard of the plane's "heroic landing". 'Economic tsunami' Earlier, Capt Sullenberger told the House aviation subcommittee that he was "deeply troubled" about the future of the airline industry. He said pay cuts had placed "pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation", and that this was deterring potential recruits. Companies should refocus on the recruitment and retention of well-trained of pilots, and this should be "at least equal to their financial bottom lines", he said. Capt Sullenberger said the airline industry had been facing severe economic challenges for the last eight years. "We've been hit by an economic tsunami: September 11th, bankruptcies, fluctuating fuel prices, mergers, loss of pensions and revolving door management teams," he said. He added that his decision to stay in the airline industry had come at "a great financial cost to me and my family", with his pay cut and pension downgraded. Advertisement Security camera footage of the Hudson River plane The committee was sitting to examine what lessons could be learned from the 15 January accident. Capt Sullenberger urged "collective solutions" involving management a labour to ensure that pilots are sufficiently valued and to avoid "negative consequences to the flying public and to our country". "The current experience and skills of our country's professional airline pilots come from investments made years ago," he said. "We must not let the economic and financial pressures detract from a focus on constantly improving our safety measures and engaging in ongoing and comprehensive training." Investigators have confirmed that Canada geese collided with both of the engines of Flight 1549 shortly before it ditched, causing them to lose power. "At the point of impact we heard thumps of the birds striking the aircraft," Capt Sullenberger told the Congress committee on Tuesday. "I immediately began to feel vibrations - abnormal, rough vibrations coming from both engines," he said. "And I quickly began to smell in the cabin circulated air, what I've experienced before, and that's a burned bird smell going through the engines."