Gov. Ned Lamont officially unveiled his latest plan to overhaul Connecticut's transportation system Thursday.
The Democrat announced the CT2030 initiative on Thursday afternoon at reset Social Enterprise Trust, a Hartford-based nonprofit that assists entrepreneurs.
This is the plan included in CT 2030
Several iterations of the governor’s original plan included between 50 and 80 tolls. Each one was met with enough skepticism this spring that the Democrat-controlled House and Senate declined to even take them up for a vote. The latest rendition scales down tolling to 14 bridges. The money collected would go back into making repairs and fixing bottlenecks along the same stretch.
There are different rates for Connecticut drivers, out-of-state drivers, and tractor-trailers. drivers from Connecticut would pay between 40 and 80 cents with a 20 percent EZ Pass discount. Out-of-state cars would pay between 50 cents and $1. Tractor trailers would have to pay seven times the amount out-of-state cars pay.
The latest $21 billion plan would devote 14 billion dollars toward road projects designed to ease traffic on the state’s highways. Another $7 billion would be spent on buses and rail over the next ten years, including the purchase of new Metro-North trains and investments to lower train travel times by 10 to 15 minutes.
According to a proposed executive summary of the initiative, obtained by The Associated Press, the governor's plan also sets in motion a possible fully functioning airport in south-central Connecticut and invests in bus, rail and port improvements. The plan also proposes Connecticut partner with private companies to develop high-speed ferry service from Stamford to lower Manhattan.
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The governor said the infrastructure improvements the funding would pay for are necessary to get the state's economy moving again.
“A state of good repair also allows us to speed up our roads, speed up our rail, end the gridlock that’s really slowing down economic growth and opportunity," Lsmont said.
The tolls are supposed to come down after the project they’re funding is finished.
The top Republican in the state Senate says there’s no guarantee and says the biggest hurdle in passing this plan is public trust.
“How do you trust that these tolls are going to come down? How do you trust that the tolls are not going to go up when fiscal problems face the state in the future?” Sen. Len Fasano asked.
