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A renewed national interest in public transit and livable communities provides Connecticut with a once-in-a-generation opportunities to invest in economic prosperity, reduce carbon emissions, and create neighborhoods of long term value.

The New Haven - Hartford - Springfield corridor was one of only 13 projects to receive High Speed Rail stimulus funding. The Hartford - New Britain Busway is expected to receive federal New Starts funding this year. These two projects, along with other efforts statewide to expand bus and rail service, will provide Connecticut communities with a level of transit access that has been absent for generations. To reap the greatest economic, mobility, and environmental benefits from these public investments, their implementation must go hand in hand with land use planning for transit oriented and walkable downtowns and neighborhoods. Transit supportive land uses oriented toward these infrastructure projects will break the state’s dependence on the automobile and enable achievement of our carbon reduction goals.

Growing Economy Shrinking Emissions Chart

These projects represent a sea change in transportation planning within the capital region. Since World War II, most transportation investments have focused on increasing capacity for automobile travel. The highways that crisscross our state have enabled a pattern of scattered housing and commercial development and a loss of open space and farmland, pushing the places we are farther from the places we need to be, perpetuating the use of the car and preventing other transportation modes from meeting daily needs. And the congestion has gotten worse.

A sprawling region can never build its way out of congestion by adding more lanes to its roadways; they fill up. The miles of highway per capita is too costly to maintain, tapping resources that could otherwise be used to create alternatives and exposing families to uncertainties of fluctuating gasoline prices. And as the state’s baby boomers age, more and more residents will become isolated by a lack of transportation options. A new strategy of transit-oriented development would capitalize on Connecticut’s rich legacy of downtowns and villages and reinforce Hartford as the locus of employment for central Connecticut.

Transit-based growth can enable the state to expand its economy while reducing its carbon emissions. The state Global Warming act (PA 08-98) requires a 10% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020, and future national policy may define more ambitious goals. Transportation contributes 40% of the state’s carbon emissions, so in order to reduce emissions there must be an overall reduction in VMT in addition to any use of lower carbon-content fuels. The patterns of future development in Connecticut’s capital region will determine the travel options available to residents, either transit-focused or auto-dependent. Under current zoning, up to an additional 94,000 homes can be accommodated, but only 20% of these would be within walking distance of transit.

Participants of the May 2009 “Redesigning the Edgeless City” workshop developed alternative scenarios for growth in three corridors of the capital region that would reduce future VMT and carbon emissions up to 18%. The scenarios included new nodes of mixeduse development along new busways, rail-accessible infill, and revitalization of a historic streetcar route with new light rail. Under the alternative scenarios, households with access to transit would increase from 6% to 64%, and reduce emissions for the three corridors by 1.3 tons per household per year.