With just a little more than a month left in office, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has dropped a bombshell that could change transportation in Connecticut.
As part of a letter sent to legislators on the appropriations committee Wednesday, Rell suggested eliminating rail service on the Danbury, Waterbury and New Canaan branches of Metro North as a cost-cutting measure.
The letter was in response to a call from some legislators for funding for the state's Low Income Home Heating Energy Assistance Program.
"We are now faced with finding approximately $33 million in an already spartan budget to keep the program funded at its current, and very generous, benefit level," Rell said in the letter.
The Governor included a list of line items she felt could be cut to find the money to fund the heating assistance program. Among those cuts was an elimination of the three branches of Metro North as of April 1, 2011. That measure would save the state $5 million, according to Rell.
Another line item would save the state $500,000 by canceling expanded Shoreline East service as of January 1, 2011.
A spokesperson for Rell's office calls the list nothing more than proposals. "I want to strongly emphasize that this list is offered as a basis for discussion and presents a range of options," Donna Tommelleo told the Danbury News Times.
Other items proposed by Governor Rell include cuts to the Department of Education, Department of Correction and Department of Environmental protection.
