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Road Safety is yet another Democrat invented crisis.
Democrats across Connecticut have been claiming that our roads are unsafe and pushing highly questionable solutions to a nonexistent safety problem. In Greenwich the local RINOs have taken up this false notion by adopting bumpouts and other “traffic calming” solutions and they even use the same “safe streets” program introduced by Mayor de Blasio in NYC in 2014.
Think about that: Greenwich Republicans copying policies from NYC’s most left leaning mayor ever.
Such initiatives always claim their noble goal is to reduce traffic fatalities. However, in NYC the so-called Safe Streets initiative together with the installation of traffic cameras (also under consideration in Greenwich) have failed to save any lives. But they did slow traffic and that costs NY $10 billion a year. The Democrat solution to the traffic problem which they created is to impose “congestion pricing,” taxing working people for going to work.
In Connecticut the claim of a road safety crisis is even less credible, especially with regards to speeding. Connecticut traffic fatalities per year have held at an average of 270 since at least 2010, as have highway miles traveled. Connecticut speeding related fatalities are about average, but alcohol related fatalities are second only to Texas. So to the extent there is any crisis, it’s an alcohol abuse issue, and slowing people down in Connecticut won’t help any more than it did in NYC.
On the other hand, traffic congestion is a big problem in Connecticut. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that congestion in Connecticut on I-95 and I-84 costs an estimated $61 million in truck freight costs. But that’s a drop in the bucket. Connecticut traffic is a renowned bottle neck and a commuter traveling through the Stamford corridor loses an average of 34.5 minutes. Multiply that by the 50,000+ daily commuters and you get $500 million wasted in fuel costs alone.
Connecticut has a long history of misusing transportation funds needed to improve the roads. In fact, money to fix the traffic issues is plentiful, but Connecticut Democrats can’t seem to get out of their own way. And instead of focusing on making our roads wider and eliminating the bottlenecks in, for example, the elevated roadway in Stamford, our governor seems focused on several little used rail corridor improvements that collectively serve fewer than 2,000 people a day while those 50,000 commuters and countless truck drivers idle on I-95 and I-84.
The solutions to traffic abound.
For example, a recent project to redo the Merritt Parkway in Stamford and Norwalk somehow failed to include widening the road. While in Stamford solutions include eliminating bottlenecks around the Exits 6 & 7 interchanges, eliminating some intersections and widening Route 1 in Stamford past Home Depot, and similar low hanging fruit that’s been rotting on the vine.
But instead Democrats want to distract from their dismal 20-year track record on roads and traffic, so they invent “transit-oriented development” and a “road safety crisis.” The next time you hear about improving “road safety” (which isn’t a problem) or “public transit” (which, asides from Metro North, hardly anyone in Connecticut uses), you should experience some “road rage” and tell them to do something about traffic instead.
Thank you but everything you say is fake news we always knew it was fake news. Your publication is the only one that says it. Thank you.
Despite the fact that it is my chosen profession to navigate a semi around these highways and I that must be out there in order to eat, and with respect for the both the logistical and political arguments of the author, I would like to take a slightly different tone.
For the life of me, I cannot fathom how there is so much traffic on these roads at any and all hours of the day.
CT's population has roughly risen from 3.2 million to 3.6 million over the past 40 years, a mere 12 percent increase -
The volume of cars on CT’s roads over the same period has seemingly doubled or even tripled. You used to be able to count on heavy traffic at the typical morning and evening rush hours with significant respite from it in the middle of the day and overnight. Today, there is brutally heavy flow – ALL THE TIME.
How can this be?
And yet, I almost find the traffic volume in itself to be irrelevant. I am bothered more about WHY they are out there than THAT they are out there.
What do they do?
My flourishing cynicism insists that – they DON’T.
And THAT is the issue.