(This is a video presentation of the following analysis.)
Connecticut state officials met with "transportation advocates" on December 3rd, 2014 for the “Getting to Work: Transportation and Jobs Access for the 21st Century” event, to discuss the future of transportation in Connecticut. (Click here to watch the full three hour forum.)
Regular readers of The Goodman Chronicle already know that the future of transportation in Connecticut, if the tax free foundations get their way, is to revolve around increased restrictions on private motor vehicle use, and a focus on public transportation. Coincidentally (or not), some of the foundations advocating a reduction in private motor vehicle use in the state, were key coordinators for this meeting. These foundations include the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Regional Plan Association, both of which, as pointed out in previous articles, have received funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, an organization advocating a much larger agenda, one aspect of which is the reduction of private motor vehicles.
The forum opened up with a quick introduction by CT Governor Dan Malloy, discussing various aspects of the transportation situation in the state. Along with public transportation goals, Malloy briefly mentions widening certain roads/highways in Connecticut in an effort to provide a better experience for private motor vehicle drivers. After Governor Malloy gives his four minute introduction speech, the topic of making transportation easier for private motor vehicle drivers is barely mentioned again, by any of the presenters, for the rest of the three hour forum. The focus of the entire forum becomes about designing communities around, and increasing the ridership of, public transportation.The majority of people living in Connecticut have no idea that this transformation of society is occurring, as Governor Dan Malloy admits in his introduction talk:
"We've actually not told people the true size and the cost of what needs to be done if CT is to be able to compete in the next 50 years."The key-note speaker for this forum was Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution. Puentes discusses the increasing poverty in Connecticut, as well as the fact that people are driving less, and attributes these situations to the economic recession. The solution however, according to Puentes, is not to try to restore the old economy, with the same jobs, and have people driving again, but to "subscribe to a brand new growth model", and "restructure the economy" in a way that focuses on creating development, and jobs, around public transportation.
The recommendations of Puentes favoring public transportation, not only ignores drivers of personal motor vehicles, but actually make it more difficult to own, and operate, a private motor vehicle. Like many of the "transportation advocates" in the state, Puentes' pro-public transportation advocacy is actually an anti-car philosophy. Some of these recommendations include a gas tax increase, toll roads, and more.
Let us take a more in depth examination of some of the policies of this "brand new growth model" recommended by Puentes.
