When regional planners gather next week, supporters of a proposal commuter rail line in Central Connecticut are hoping to derail the $579 million busway between New Britain and Hartford.
A taste of how bitter the debate has grown cropped up Thursday at the Central Connecticut Transportation Improvement Committee session in Bristol when officials on each side lashed out at the other.
New Britain Mayor Tim Stewart accused rail backers at the meeting of “disrespectful and extremely disingenuous” behavior in trying to ambush the busway plan at the ordinarily mundane transportation meeting.
The public works director of New Britain, Mark Moriarty, said “calls were made behind New Britain’s back” to try to round up rail supporters to “put a kink” in the busway’s progress at Thursday’s session. He described himself as furious at the effort.
But as advocates on both sides faced off, they agreed to leave what would ordinarily be a routine administrative decision to the Central Connecticut Regional Planning Agency, which meets next week. Read the whole story here.
*******Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
4 comments:
The mayor of New Britain needs to reexamine his position. The rail line already goes near many old industrial areas and could be used again for hauling freight from the factories that could be built in the brownfields that used to provide many jobs within walking distance of the homes. Just imagine what could be done in the downtown area if factories like the decrepit New Departure buildings could have hundreds of workers coming in every day.
1) I'm a Republican and although I'm always excited when a Republican is a mayor of a relatively large CT city, Tim Stewart is 100% wrong on this. The busway is a bad idea and a dumb idea. Who will it serve besides those of the inner-city, welfare class? The bus-way will nothing for Bristol. Over $550 million now and perhaps eventually billions will be spent on this "bridge to no-where" (almost literally).
2) The Bristol community should get behind Don Padlo and rail advocates like Chamber of Commerce dircetor Mike Nicastro in battling against this busway. We need something that will help Bristol. The Bristol Democrat and Republican Legislators should be fighting this tooth and nail.
3) The public works director in Britian's name is Mark Moriarty by the way Collins not Mike.
How does this serve in improving quality of life for New Britain residents? Again, a bus route from Hartford to New Britain will primarily serve the welfare class. It should be re-named the "Hartford-New Britain Drug-Way" or the "Gang-Alliance Project".
It also sounds more like quid-pro-quo for road construction contractors from politicians than economic development, stimulus or mass transporation improvement. There already are numerous bus-ways from New Britain to Hartford (Route 9, I-84, and Route 15). KILL THIS STUPID IDEA NOW!!!!!
Damn being you know so much why don't you do something about it?Positively wrong maybe?
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