When a train jumped the tracks this past week at New York’s Penn Station, the seemingly minor accident led to a cascade of exasperating delays for hundreds of thousands of commuters. When a flood forced authorities to condemn a one-lane, century-old bridge in rural Ozark, Missouri, it was no less frustrating for the residents and business owners cut off from their shortest route into town The two episodes highlight a reality about the U.S. transportation system — it is aging, congested and so vital that when things go wrong, big and costly disruptions can result for which there is no quick fix.
Though President Donald Trump has promised a $1 trillion infrastructure-rebuilding program, not all of that may go toward transportation. Even then, it would fall well short of the many trillions needed to fix the country’s web of roads, bridges, railways, subways and bus stations. The commuter train in New York derailed because of a weakened railroad tie. No one was seriously injured. But the incident shut down eight of the station’s 21 tracks, disrupting Amtrak service in the Northeast from Boston to Washington, as well as delaying commuter trains in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for the better part of a week. Business meetings were canceled, ballgames, dinners and doctor’s appointments missed, and commuters fumed. Lawyer Dominic Boone, who travels into New York from New Jersey, complained that because he arrived late to the office and had to leave early to catch a different train, he lost 10 hours of work for which he could have billed clients. “They should have been working on Penn Station forever ago,” Boone said. “As a nation, we should be spending more on our crumbling infrastructure.” The disruption was only a brief example of the frustration travelers could face if the region can’t find a way to replace a pair of deteriorating, overcrowded, century-old rail tunnels that run under the Hudson River and connect New York and New Jersey. The tunnels, which were severely damaged in Superstorm Sandy in 2012, could cost more than $20 billion to replace. But the money has yet to be lined up. And construction, whenever it begins, may take more than a decade.
The Penn Station derailment came less than two weeks after another one there, caused by a misaligned track. And it happened just days after motorists in Atlanta were forced to begin taking long, bumper-to-bumper detours because a fire collapsed an Interstate 85 overpass linking the city to some of its biggest suburbs. Arson — not aging steel and concrete — is suspected there. It could take until mid-June to repair the highway. Earlier this year, a cracked steel beam forced the closing of a major bridge between Pennsylvania and New Jersey for 1½ months. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Long-awaited Cheshire trail work begins
CHESHIRE — Town Manager Michael Milone applied a railroad analogy to explain the magnitude of Saturday morning’s groundbreaking ceremony for the last section of trail construction needed on the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in Cheshire.
Milone said it was like driving the last spike on the last rail for the transcontinental railroad.
The small stretch faced big obstacles, including a decade-long legal battle with Dalton Enterprises and environmental concerns, but the issues have been resolved and construction will begin this week on the 0.67-mile section from Cornwall Avenue to West Main Street. A subsection will require a concrete boardwalk as well as pedestrian bridges to cross Willow Brook at two locations.The contract for the $4.5 million project was awarded to Richards Corp. on March 1 and is scheduled to be completed Oct. 7, 2018, resulting in 23 miles of continuous trail between New Haven and Southington.
“This last sixth-tenths of a mile has been, really, the holy grail of this trail,” said James Redeker, a Cheshire resident and commissioner of the state Department of Transportation. “To finally connect this last section will give Connecticut the longest paved section of contiguous trail on the East Coast Greenway in the country. It’s enormous. The whole section will be 23 miles from New Haven to Southington. We are incrementally but rapidly trying to close all the gaps in Connecticut.” Bruce Donald, president of the Farmington Valley Trails Council and chairman of the Connecticut Greenways Council, said the final piece in Cheshire was one of the most difficult in the state to build. He praised the tenacity of Cheshire officials and volunteers, as well as a huge commitment from the DOT, most notably Redeker and trail project manager Scott Bushee.
Donald added that there are other pieces of the trail in the works throughout the state, including a plan to extend Southington’s trail into Plainville in the next year and half.
“This trail is going to be (completely) done in a few years,” he said. “It’s absolutely amazing.”
Saturday’s groundbreaking ceremony also included remarks from Cheshire state Reps. Lezlye Zupkus and Liz Linehan; Susan K. Whalen, deputy commissioner for environmental conservation at the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection; and Cheshire Town Council member Patti Flynn-Harris.
Today, crews are scheduled to continue ripping up curbs and walkways running Academy to Broad streets on the east side of Main Street and from Academy to Hutchins streets on the west side.
“It’s a $400,000 project, which will be paid for with a state Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program grant,” Community Development Administrator Mary Bromm said. “It should take about 75 days to finish and cause much less disruption to nearby homes and businesses.”
“There will be some disruption to walkers this time,” Bromm said. “And we will have flaggers out in the road so there could be minor traffic delays.”
The project was necessitated by the degradation of curbs to weather, time and the propensity of drivers to use sidewalks as parking spaces. Bromm said past paving projects also raised the street up so the roads are nearly flush with the curbs.
The sidewalk project is expected to be followed by the laying of a fresh roadway on Main Street sometime in the summer. The work will include road striping and the end of on-street parking on both sides of Main Street.