Chris Powell: Hartford (Rail) Line would work better if cities along it did, too

Hartford Line train in Hartford

Lauding the increase in passenger traffic in the first 18 months of the Springfield-Hartford-New Haven commuter railroad -- the Hartford Line -- Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont remarked the other week that he found it "astounding" that central Connecticut had gone without a commuter railroad for so long.

While the increase in traffic indeed is encouraging -- the millionth passenger appears to have ridden the restored line around Thanksgiving -- the long lack of commuter rail service between Springfield and New Haven is really not astounding at all. Because of the automobile and the commitment of government to highways, commuter rail service became deeply unprofitable in the 1950s and died in central Connecticut after the bankruptcy of the New Haven Railroad, in 1961. Amtrak's interstate service on the route long has been infrequent and clunky.

Commuter rail service from New Haven to New York survived the New Haven's bankruptcy because New York and Connecticut state governments have operated it with big subsidies as part of the Metro-North Railroad system. Heavy rush-hour traffic on the highways from New Haven to New York keeps the train attractive there despite the rickety tracks and bridges. But highway traffic between Springfield and New Haven seldom is bad enough to induce people to get out of their cars to take buses or the new commuter trains.

For passengers the new Hartford Line service is great and inexpensive, just $8 per ride. The line will get better as more stations are built. But when the service began in June 2018 every passenger trip was being subsidized by state government in the fantastic amount of $59. That subsidy was entirely operating cost, not counting the $700 million spent rebuilding the line. Even now, with ridership increasing, the subsidy per passenger trip is still about $56. A bus ride for a parallel trip costs a fraction of that.

It will be a miracle if the Hartford Line's per-passenger subsidy can be reduced someday even to $40, since the area served lacks the necessary population density and workforce flow patterns and since another prerequisite of a successful commuter railroad isn't always available: frequent bus, taxi, or subway service at major destinations.

But the Hartford Line seems like a far more promising transportation project than another heavily subsidized recent project, the Hartford-New Britain bus highway, which added little to commuting options that were already available. The Hartford Line's reach and service area are far greater. In a state that chose to encourage economic growth instead of just to cannibalize itself to pay pensions to government employees, something like the Hartford Line would be a much greater asset for "transit-oriented development."

Further, of course, highways represent government subsidies just as the new commuter railroad does -- so much so that highways have been given their own revenue streams with special taxes on gasoline and tires. Where population density is high and highways are already crowded, shifting subsidies toward mass transit makes sense.

Maybe the best government could do to build ridership on the Hartford Line would be to improve the demographics and commerce of the cities along it -- Springfield, Hartford, Meriden, and New Haven -- something that should be done for its own sake, quite apart from the success of the new railroad.

Improving the demographics of those cities will require examining what in government policy is perpetuating instead of eradicating the poverty there and thus driving self-sufficient people away from "transit-oriented development."

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.

Longing for 'The Comet'

If only…

The old New Haven Railroad put a unique three-car articulated high-speed passenger train called “The Comet’’ into service between Boston and Providence during 1935. The radically streamlined train was designed and built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company using the latest aerodynamic methods and technologies. Unfortunately, the speedy Comet was a bit too successful on the Boston-Providence run. When the New Haven's passenger business picked up at the start of World War II, the small train couldn't handle the crowds of people who wanted to ride it. The Comet was taken off the Boston-Providence run and spent the remainder of its service life on short-haul commuter runs in the Boston area. It was scrapped in 1951.

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal 24.com

It’s too bad that the Rhode Island Department of Transportation decided not to have a second set of tracks laid for the new Pawtucket commuter rail station and instead is building the station directly along Amtrak’s very busy Northeast Corridor tracks. As The Providence Journal’s Patrick Anderson reported in an Aug. 26 story (“Pawtucket station cost climbs to $51 million’’), “With the station directly on the Northeast Corridor, intercity or express trains couldn’t overtake trains stopping in Pawtucket.’’ That may well slow down traffic on that very heavily traveled Amtrak/MBTA line. And, Mr. Anderson noted, “ot building a second set of tracks could make it more difficult to create a Rhode Island-run rail shuttle.’’

The Transportation Department’s decision to forgo the tracks was done to save money but the project has included a hefty cost overrun -- $11 million so far -- at least in part because, Mr. Anderson reports, Amtrak rules (it’s their track!) “have forced the station work to be done at night and at other times of light traffic,’’ driving up costs. But the biggest false economy in this is for the long-term.

Of course, Amtrak itself needs more tracks to allow more and faster trains and help get as many vehicles as possible off the roads.

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Kudos to Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker for making a push for MBTA express trains between Boston and Providence. But this will require working it out with Amtrak, which runs on the same line. Again we need more tracks!! And an express train program may also require leasing electric-powered trains from Amtrak; the diesel trains now on the MBTA’s Providence-Boston route are less reliable than electric ones.

What could happen faster is having express highway lanes on highways in and around Boston that drivers would have to pay a toll to use. That would bring in money for transportation projects and encourage use of mass transit. Mr. Baker seems to like the idea, though many will yelp. But the region’s highway-congestion crisis has reached the point that strong, perhaps politically unpopular measures must be taken – and soon. (Some wags are calling the proposed express lanes “Lexus Lanes,’’ implying they’ll unduly favor richer folks who can more easily afford them.)

Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, former Amtrak chairman and now a Northeastern University political science professor, said at a Grow Smart RI meeting in April:

“The only way to solve this congestion problem is to have a first-class regional rail system not only for Massachusetts but for all of New England, with the six governors deeply and actively involved. It would take 60,000 to 70,000 cars off the road every day.”

Memories of the New Haven

The apogee of the New Haven, right before the Depression.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

'The other week I took the Shore Line East commuter rail line, which runs between New London and New Haven. I noticed that the cars were from the old New Haven Railroad, which went out of business in 1968! That the cars are so old testifies both to how sturdy (if now rattling) they are, reminding me of those tough old DC 3 prop passenger planes that were flown for decades by numerous airlines, and to how old so much of America’s infrastructure is. (The official name of the the railroad was, as you can see above, a mouthful. But everyone just called it "The New Haven''.)

The old NH cars also reminded me of the old New Haven Railroad itself, with its stuffy smoking cars, itchy upholstery and, on its longer runs, especially Boston to New York, dining cars where you could even get lobster but because of silly labor rules, you had to put your order in writing.

And then I think of the weary and melancholy commuters, such as the Dan Draper character in Mad Men, sitting and smoking in a New Haven Railroad car and looking sadly out at a platform at a suburban station in Westchester or Fairfield County where a sole man, wearing a fedora and a London Fog raincoat, is pacing back and forth in the dusk.

The anguish of 'The Organization Man'

  See Paul Zahl's wonderful take on Sloan Wilson and his "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit'' (1955),  that memorable but  frequently misdescribed novel about what William H. Whyte called the corporate "Organization Man''.

The Reverend Mr. Zahl (he is an Episcopal minister) headlined  his posting "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Suburbia''.

The hero of the novel,  the polite and quiet Tom Rath, is  a daily Westport-New York commuter on the infamous New Haven Railroad (now the infamous Metro North) in shock from what happened to him in World War II.