CT Construction Digest Tuesday November 19, 2019

 

Governor Lamont has proposed a 10-year transportation plan. Visit CT2030 

Senate Republicans have proposed a 10-year transportation plan as well.  Visit Fastr CT

The plans deliver the same projects over the next 10 years!  The plans would provide a faster commute, safer travel, jobs, and economic activity!
The Senate Democratic Caucus will not support Governor Lamont’s plan because they are nervous about voting for tolls.
The Senate Democrats are “taking a look” at the Senate Republican Plan.
The Senate Democrats have no plan!
Call the Senate Democratic Leadership!
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney 860-240-0375
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff 860-240-0414
Ask them…since they oppose Governor Lamont’s and "taking a look" at the Republican Plan…
What is their plan to fix Connecticut’s failing transportation systems?

CBIA urges bipartisan action on transportation funding
Paul Hughs
HARTFORD — The state’s largest business group is urging bipartisan cooperation on transportation funding after Gov. Ned Lamont’s latest tolling plan flopped.
The Connecticut Business & Industry Association on Monday publicly appealed to the Democratic governor and the state legislature’s Democratic majority and Republican minority to work out a financing plan.
“The legislature and the administration must seek compromise and unite behind a funding plan that will provide the resources necessary to rebuild and modernize our infrastructure to move Connecticut’s economy forward, while ensuring all transportation dollars are safeguarded and spent in an efficient, cost-effective manner,” CBIA President and CEO Joe Brennan said in a statement. “It is critical that the legislature show a sense of urgency and act now to pass a comprehensive transportation infrastructure plan.”
Lamont proposed a 10-year, $21.3 billion transportation funding plan on Nov. 7 that included a scaled down tolling component after bipartisan opposition in the legislature blocked a previously recommended 50-toll plan.
The governor’s CT2030 initiative counts on tolls to repay low-interest loans from the federal government to fund 14 bridge and highway improvement projects. The tolls are expected to raise an average of $320 million annually.
Lamont is having to regroup a second time after a presentation to Senate Democrats last Wednesday made clear that even 14 tolls were too many to get through the General Assembly. Democrats have a 22-14 Senate majority and a 91-60 House majority.
Senate Republicans issued a 10-year, $18 billion counterproposal last Thursday that shunned tolls, and House Republicans also announced that the caucus would be presenting an alternative plan without tolls, too.
There is an emerging consensus on establishing a 10-year construction timetable and using the project list in the CT2030 plan, including the 14 bridge and highway projects that Lamont proposed to use tolls to finance.
There is also general agreement to seek low-interest federal loans available through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act and the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program.
The Senate Republicans’s FASTR CT plan and CT2030 both anticipated receiving $4.7 billion in TIFIA and RRIF financing.
“All publicized plans recognize that the essential elements of the governor’s proposal, from utilizing federal low-interest loans to the identified infrastructure projects, are good ideas,” Brennan said. “There are differences in the proposed funding mechanisms, but we now have constructive ideas on the table.”

Dan Haar: The CT Tolls in ‘21 campaign starts now
I got a call Friday from an irate Democrat, an elected official upset over the way the transportation rollout went down. It prompted me to look ahead to 2021.This officeholder, who’s in a big job, is pro-tolls, not no-tolls. He or she wasn’t mad at Gov. Ned Lamont or the Republicans or the tenacious activists who helped kill Lamont’s $320 million plan to toll 14 bridges and highway interchanges. No, this elected Democrat vented squarely at Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and Sen. Martin Looney, D-New Haven — majority leader and president pro-tem of the state Senate, respectively. They failed to shepherd enough support to pull Lamont’s plan to victory, the officeholder huffed, thus failing a state that counted on them to do the right thing. What good was the 2018 Democratic tidal wave in the Senate, if they were just going to play dead instead of enacting a modest, common-sense idea?This angry Democrat isn’t alone. Contrary to popular belief, a silent majority in the state — drowned out by opponents — does want tolls if the money is spent the right way.And the time for that to happen is 2021. Let this moment mark the start of the Tolls 2021 movement. Slogan: “Other states pay, we save.”It didn’t happen in 2019 for reasons we’ve gone over. Louder opponents than supporters, Lamont’s lack of experience dealing with the legislature, no clear plan for how to spend the money until the fall, too many first-term senators worried about keeping their seats.It’s not going to happen in 2020 for one simple reason: It’s a short, 4-month General Assembly session in an election year, not the time to devise a complex financing scheme that divides the state. As one lawmaker said to me, “In election years people say ‘Let’s do no harm.’”“I don’t see anything happening for tolls in 2020,” said Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, the pro-tolls co-chairman of the General Assembly’s transportation committee. Ah, but 2021? That legislative session starts in less than 14 months. The timing could be exquisite politically and economically — if we start now, and if we move toward a plan that really  More on that in a minute; first, here’s why CT rolls with tolls in ’21:Lamont will be a third-year governor - either frustrated and leaning against a re-election bid in 2022, or in the sweet spot of his stride. Either way, he’ll be more in position to lead the way on tolls than he is now. You can say 2019 was the right moment with a newly elected governor and strong majorities in the House and Senate. But Lamont had campaigned against broad tolling and he made some gaffes. He choked off bonding for town projects and his budget shortchanged the transportation fund by $158 million from the car sales tax — a gift to opponents who said Lamont couldn’t be trusted with tolls.

We have a huge class of 11 first-term Senate Democrats, many of them nervous over tolls. Think about it, nearly one-third of the whole Senate comprises Dems who took office in 2019 — and we really expected them to risk their new seats and take a generational vote? By 2021, they’ll be on more solid footing if they win reelection, as most of them will with Trump on the ballot next year. Republicans who might vote for tolls — names like Sen. Tony Hwang and Sen. George Logan, perhaps — might be free of President Donald Trump and thus the toxic, anti-everything Trumpism that’s a tumor on the GOP. Remember, in many states it’s Republicans who lead the way on tolls because tolls are user fees rather than taxes on assets or income.   By 2021, we should have enacted the financing plan put forth on Thursday by Sen. Len Fasano and his fellow Senate Republicans. It will use $1.2 billion of the state’s rainy-day fund, or about 40 percent of the state’s financial cushion, to pay down pension debt. That in turn will lower our pension payments by some $225 million a year, which we can then use to secure low-interest federal loans. That plan makes sense if we can’t have tolls but by 2021 we’ll realize we need a more permanent source of revenue that gives us free money from outside the state.   We will start the budget process anew, most likely with projected shortfalls that require hard choices — like tolls.

  By 2021 we will either have a recession, and will need that cushion and therefore we’ll be desperate to charge New Yorkers, Bostonians and the rest of the nation to pass through Connecticut, as they require of us; or we’ll be status quo, ready for Phase II of the financing plan. That would mean tolls as a smart, long-term solution that cuts down on borrowing and brings in 40 percent from out-of-state drivers and interstate trucks. Democrats I spoke with are not eager to embrace this campaign, at least not yet. Why run on a divisive issue that won’t come to a vote before Election Day? “There are still some hurt feelings all around,” Leone, a tolls supporter, said Monday. But he added, “It’s a scenario that has possibilities.”A lot depends on the details, as Lamont learned when he shrank the springtime plan down to 14 gantries statewide, only to discover that key senators felt singled out while other districts, notably the Bridgeport area, came out toll-free. Here’s what would work: statewide, linear tolling of whole highways, to be fair in a state that’s obsessed with town fiefdoms. And it has to add no more than $300 million to the tax base. That means gantries must be plentiful but cheap, like 60 gates at 3 cents per mile. That’s inefficient mechanically but effective politically. effective politically.

Better still, couple broad tolling with tax cuts elsewhere — like property tax credits combined with Lamont’s earlier idea of credits for low-income drivers, the better to win more liberal votes.

For now, we’re in a moment of anger, which may or may not be misplaced. Duff and Looney can argue that they couldn’t have handed Lamont a victory no matter how hard they tried. They might be right, though some in their own party remain disappointed.

No more looking back. Let’s turn the negatives into a positive by building upward from this day forward. Tolls in 2021 can work, but only if Democrats and a few like-minded Republicans think about what’s best for the state, not their political fortunes.

Tolls mean lower costs for taxpayers in the long run. Other states pay, we save.

 

Connecticut’s roads are 19th worst in the U.S., research group says

Jordan Fenster

Connecticut’s roads are the 19th worst in the United States, according to one research group.
Using data from its own surveys of drivers and governmental agencies, ConsumerAffairs ranked the quality — or lack thereof — of the roads in every state.

To do that, the organization looked at four factors: Car crash fatalities on roads per mile (from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; the percentage of roads in poor, fair and good condition according to the Federal Highway Administration; the amount spent per mile of road, per data from the U.S. Department of Transportation; and an email survey of 1,418 U.S. residents in all 50 states.

Based on that data, the worst roads in the nation are in South Carolina, where only 35 percent of roads are considered to be in “good” condition, and they spend $26 per mile.By contrast, Connecticut ranks at number 19 on the list of worst roads — 21 percent of the state’s roads are in “good” condition, and $95 is spent per mile to maintain them.

Other states in the northeast don’t far that well, either. New York, for example, spends $104 per mile, and 46 percent of roads are in “good” condition. It’s ranked number 20.
Massachusetts comes in at number 15 — that state also spends $104 per mile, but only 29 percent of its roads are in “good” condition.
Rhode Island, though, has the fourth worst roads in the state, according to ConsumerAffairs. That state’s $70 per mile results in 11 percent of roads in “good” condition.

Norwich officials to discuss Sherman Street bridge replacement Tuesday
Claire Bessette           
Norwich — A $13 million project to replace the two Sherman Street bridges over the Yantic River and adjacent former canal isn’t slated for construction until 2022, but city Public Works Department officials will explain the project at a public forum at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
The project calls for replacing both nearly 65-year-old bridges, realigning the intersection with Asylum Street and relocating the one sidewalk over the bridge to the south side rather than the north side of the road.
The project is being funded with 80 percent federal dollars, 10 percent state money and a 10 percent city match, Public Works Director Patrick McLaughlin said.
The bridge, known locally as the Canada Bridge, has deteriorated over the years as the city, state and federal transportation officials worked on various designs for the bridge. One earlier plan was rejected that would have moved the bridge more significantly to the north.
Temporary repairs have been made to the pavement and sidewalk, and barriers have been erected on the south side to shift vehicles and pedestrians away from the worst section of the bridge, Norwich city engineer Brian Long said.
In 2015, the Public Works Department downgraded the weight limit over the canal bridge from 20 tons to 10 tons — allowing short-box delivery trucks, snowplows and school buses, but not 18-wheeler trucks or large, heavy cranes.
At Tuesday’s meeting, to be held in Council Chambers at City Hall, city officials will give an overview of the project and the time schedule for residents, business owners, commuters and the general public.
Long said shifting the Sherman Street-Asylum Street junction slightly would eliminate a sharp right turn that travelers now must make from Sherman Street entering Asylum Street.
Shifting the sidewalk to the south side of the bridge “makes more sense,” he said. Crosswalks will be painted on Sherman Street at the Asylum Street intersection and on Sherman Street on the opposite end of the bridges near the entrance to the Upper Falls Heritage Park.
Construction is not expected to start until spring of 2022, but additional interim repairs to the crumbling sidewalk will be done shortly, Long said.

Unemployment rate flat as CT sheds 1,500 jobs in Oct.
Matt Pilon
Connecticut’s unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent in October as the state lost 1,500 net jobs, state labor officials said Monday.
The private sector shed 1,000 jobs during the recent month, with the government sector (which also includes tribal casinos) losing 500.
It was the first monthly job loss since June, noted state Department of Labor research director Andy Condon.
The “trade, transportation and utilities” supersector lost 1,000 net jobs on its own. Meanwhile, the largest gainer in October was “construction and mining,” which added 700 net jobs.

DOL on Monday revised its previous September estimates upward, and now believes the state added 4,700 jobs that month instead of 3,600. 

That would almost wipe out the impact of a previous downward revision, by 1,200 jobs, for August.
Over the past year, employment in Connecticut is up by 4,800 jobs, or 0.3 percent.
The state is 116 months into its job recovery from the 2008-2010 recession, and employment totals remain below their pre-recession level by 18,300 jobs.
The private sector has recovered nearly 106 percent of the 112,000 jobs it lost during the downturn, but government jobs -- down by 1,700 over the past year, continue to slow Connecticut’s full recovery.