Transportation & FAA Redesign
Our economic potential and our quality of life must no longer be held hostage to traffic.
As someone who commuted to work from our district for years, Jim Himes knows that transportation is a critical issue for our region. Commuters spend hours a day sitting on our clogged roads, when they could be getting things done at work or spending time with their families at home. At the same time, businesses are far more likely to succeed when they do not have to worry about goods or labor getting stuck in traffic.
The major federal transportation bill will be up for renegotiation in 2009. In Congress, Jim will seek a seat on the Transportation Committee to ensure that new federal funds are brought to bear on the transportation and infrastructure challenges facing our district.
Make Rail Transit More Accessible
The best way to reduce traffic congestion, conserve gas, and improve quality of life for commuters is to enable more people to use our regional rail system. But today, many of our stations have four and five-year waiting lists for annual parking permits - and the permits themselves can cost as much as $650. In Congress, Jim will seek dedicated federal funding for our train stations to add substantial parking capacity, as well as to expand shuttle-style bus service to and from train stations throughout the region.
In addition, our tax system actually discourages commuters from using mass transit. Employers are permitted to offer employees a tax-free parking benefit twice as large as the benefit for mass transit or carpooling. In Congress, Jim will substantially increase the cap for the transit benefit, so that it exceeds the parking benefit - correcting the incentive structure of our tax code while helping more commuters afford to use our rail system.
Update our rail system for 21st Century Transit
Our regional rail system has not kept pace with the realities of our modern transportation needs. The system is designed to move thousands of people down to Grand Central in the morning, and back to Connecticut at the end of the workday. But today more of us are working less traditional schedules, and commuting to different places. Perhaps most importantly, our rail system is not equipped to handle the spike in ridership it is now experiencing, as many more people endeavor to conserve expensive gas by taking the train.
After prototypes are delivered and tested, Jim will pursue federal funding for an expanded fleet of Metro North’s new M8 cars. This added capacity will enable our regional rail system to function more like a subway system, with trains arriving frequently at each station and heading in both directions. It will also decrease crowding on the trains, adding to the incentive for commuters to use mass transit rather than driving to work.
Reduce highway traffic by moving freight off our roads
To make our businesses more competitive, improve our air quality, and reduce our traffic burden, Jim will push for Congress to fast-track the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel. Today, our region relies almost exclusively on trucking to move freight, because there is no way for a significant volume of rail freight to cross the Hudson River south of Albany. As a result, our highways are congested and our air quality is among the worst in the nation.
The Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel will supply the missing link in our rail infrastructure, taking hundreds of thousands of trucks off our roads each year. At the same time, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our area by more than 120,000 tons. When the major federal transportation bill comes up for reauthorization in 2009, Jim will make securing funding for the tunnel a top priority.
Increase service to Bridgeport
Jim believes that Amtrak should treat Bridgeport like Connecticut’s largest city, not a second-class citizen. Right now, none of Amtrak’s Acela trains and only some of its Northeast Regional trains stop in Bridgeport - even though they stop in New Haven and Stamford.
In Congress, Jim will press for greater Amtrak service to Bridgeport, because he knows that as long as the Northeast’s business community doesn’t have a convenient means of getting here, businesses are much less likely to consider Bridgeport as a possible focus for new investment.
Reform the federal funding process for infrastructure projects
The quality of our infrastructure affects our economic competitiveness, our public safety, and our security as a nation. In Congress, Jim will work within the current funding system, using his leverage as a member of the majority party to bring needed transportation resources to our region. At the same time, however, Jim will press Congress to fundamentally reform our funding scheme for infrastructure so that it no longer puts politics ahead of performance.
Specifically, Jim will advocate for Congress to establish an independent, bipartisan national commission to take the politics out of transportation policy, modeled on the successful Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Given the magnitude of our infrastructure needs and our proximity to the nation’s largest economic hub, our towns and cities will only benefit from a fairer procedure for allocating infrastructure funding. This shift will also help to restore the political will for infrastructure spending, which has been sapped in recent years by the perception that it is simply a matter of doling out pork.
FAA Redesign
Jim vigorously opposes the proposed FAA Redesign, which would route substantially more air traffic through the airspace above Fairfield County. Rather than needlessly disrupting the quality of life for our residents, Jim believes that the FAA should invest in deploying the next generation of air traffic technology. This new technology will allow planes to safely travel significantly closer to one another, obviating the need for additional air traffic and noise in our region.
